


PROJECT:  Dark Phoenix IV

by BlackGoshawk



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Affectionate Insults, Angst, Awkward Boners, Biting, Blood and Injury, Blood and Torture, Choking, Death, Dom/sub, Dom/sub Undertones, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Fingerfucking, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Force Bond (Star Wars), Graphic Description, Hand Jobs, Hate to Love, Horror, I'm Going to Hell, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Jedi, Loss, Loss of Virginity, Masturbation, Misuse of the Force, Mutual Masturbation, NSFW, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Orgasm Denial, Psychological Horror, Public Hand Jobs, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, S&M, Sassy, Science Fiction, Sex, Slapping, Slow Burn, Smut, Snowballing, Submission, Swearing, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force, Torture, Undead, Whipping, non-con elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-05-31 06:41:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 27
Words: 86,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6459868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackGoshawk/pseuds/BlackGoshawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren is sent on a mysterious mission to an abandoned planet that was once the heart of the old Empire's science and research department; what he finds there will change the fate of himself and the Galaxy forever. </p><p> <br/>Description of Character Style/Story:<br/>Kylo Ren starts off as a cold, aggressive, true-to canon-type of Kylo, but slowly morphs into a submissive Kylo (literally so, in NSFW chapters 8, 11, 13 and to a lesser extent in NSFW chapters 5 & 18) with a canon-type personality. Reader insert character is a Reader x OC hybrid domme female, with purposefully very little of her physical appearance described (Reader can fill in those blanks for themselves). Story is a slow burning action-adventure/science fiction/horror tale with spicy sexy bits and fluff sprinkled in. Multiple large chapters set in a pre-The Force Awakens universe; some horror, biological experimentation, and torture elements. </p><p>Entire story re-edited (story is the same but paragraphs were edited for clarity and easier readability) on 4-27-16.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Initialization

**Author's Note:**

> Do not stand at my grave and weep.  
> I am not there; I do not sleep.  
> I am a thousand winds that blow.  
> I am the diamond glints on snow.  
> I am the sunlight on ripened grain.  
> I am the gentle autumn rain.  
> When you awaken in the morning's hush  
> I am the swift uplifting rush  
> Of quiet birds in circled flight.  
> I am the soft stars that shine at night.  
> Do not stand at my grave and cry;  
> I am not there; I did not die
> 
> \-- Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1932

TIME: 23:47:03:38 HRS  
TEMP: 6.1C/43F  
SUBJECT: DARK PHOENIX IV  
DESCRIPTION: _Subject shows decreasing signs of blood/brain barrier malformations and no encephalitic edema response, which indicates a new acceptance of introduced materials by the immune system. Subject’s mental status remains mostly inactive; the original host brain is still resisting infiltration per deep EEG readings. Signs of conscious resistance however are extremely erratic and prone to falling below detectable levels; a single additional infusion should fully cease any further problematic response. Internal temperature has risen 2% over the last 12.3 hours; transformation should occur soon. The team will update ALPHA command unit with more details once transformation is complete. Team is cautiously optimistic for success with this subject._

\-----------------------------------------v^v^v^v^v^v^-----------------------------------------

Kylo Ren looked out over the black void of space, his sharp mind lost deep in thought for his next mission. The tall commander’s reflection shimmered in the transparisteel window; his cloaked body was robed in a dark visage of coalesced shadows that had been rebuilt in the very image of Death’s own wraith-like form, topped off by a heavy steel mask that was lined with delicate hand-hewn silver details. His heavy, battle-worn boots stood side by side at proud attention; the sparks of life from distant stars flickered over the metallic buckles and toe tips, offering a hint of ethereality to the shining black leather.

His menacing appearance however, was not what occupied the lone man’s troubled thoughts; it was this mission. It was to say the least, not the usual type of mission that someone of his ‘special capabilities’ would usually be tapped for. The deceptively simple request had come down from the very top; find, assess, and if needed, eliminate a threat to several researchers that had been found on a small, distant world that had once been a hive of activity for the old Empire. 

The world itself – a tiny, mostly rain-soaked, temperate world - had been abandoned many years prior for reasons that were never recorded or simply lost due to the slow degradation of time. Later investigations had seemed to indicate that the abandonment of the planet and its work had been due to the Empire’s defeat and winnowing financial situation, however a few oddities about the state of the facilities there left glaring holes in that theory; thick claw marks found wrought through durasteel walls, the charred bones found of former workers that were left behind, and areas of the buildings that had been rendered useless through an unknown electrocution event of some significant power. 

Kylo Ren’s own organization - the proud, militaristic First Order, who sought to bring order to the Galaxy in the wake of the Empire’s fall - had sent a few researchers down about a month prior to reclaim the old Imperial research stations for their own purposes. It would seem though that an unidentified threat had claimed the lives of several of them; this was the threat he was being sent down to investigate and quell if needed. Whatever this ‘threat’ was must have some significance given that Ren himself was pressed into service for the mission, instead of simply sending down a squad or two of much more expendable Stormtroopers. 

Kylo grimaced in annoyance under his mask; was he – the Master of the Knights of Ren - really being sent down to slay some damned wild animal? An ancient haywire research droid? Some other worthless, man-manufactured terror that the spineless researchers had cowered like defenseless children from? In spite of his cocksure thoughts, a sliver of concern pricked his brain as he focused on the planet itself – there _was_ something inexplicably different about this mission. This nearly insignificant fragment of warning had tripped the curiosity circuits of his brain, and his was a mind that left nothing to chance.

A tightly timed sound of light bootsteps falling on metal flooring pattered out a rhythm and slowly stopped several wide feet behind Kylo. The soft cadence of stuttered, terrified breathing and the unmistakable air of cowardice wafted through towards the dark-cloaked man’s sensitive brain; without turning to face the newcomer, Kylo’s nearly supernatural senses flicked silently outward - he knew immediately that this was one of General Hux’s Command communications officers, here to tell him what he already knew. 

He took a fraction of a second to recall his name amongst many thousands – this was that simpering, stick-thin waif of a man from the Command sector with dark hair, one that had never had an original thought in his entire life, and who would be most likely out of the entire communications team to wet himself in fear if he ever saw the inside of a battlefield at ground level. With a sneer, Kylo answered the nervous smaller man’s message before it had ever been asked aloud, his voice deep and somewhat distorted by the voice modulator in his helmet. “We have arrived at our destination, on schedule. Lieutenant Mitaka, ensure that my shuttle has been prepared for departure. I shall depart immediately upon achieving stationary orbit.” 

Mitaka swallowed a giant lump in his throat. “Y-y-y-y-ess si-r-r.” He hated having to be the bearer of any news to Kylo Ren, be the news good or bad. The dark warrior terrified him to his very bones; he knew of his mind-crushing psychic powers, legendary temper tantrums, and worst of all, he had seen his handiwork with a lightsaber first hand when Kylo had turned his anger on a nearby computer station after being relayed a message that he didn’t like. He also knew that he could read minds and emotions; ‘Force-sensitive’ was the word they used to describe those who possessed those abilities… and before him stood one of the very best, and one of the very last of those who could perform such feats of what felt like magic to those who could not.

Lieutenant Mitaka kept his distance – however from someone like Kylo Ren, there was hardly such a thing as a ‘safe distance’ – and he angled his eyes downward as he tried to mentally make himself as small as possible. After a brief, terrible moment of uncomfortable silence, Kylo Ren spun hard on one heel, and with a flourish of heavy pounding boots and deathly black cape and cloak, headed away from the window and back into the bowels of the great Resurgent-Class Star Destroyer, the Finalizer. Once Ren’s footfalls became more distant, Mitaka remembered then to exhale the terror-laced breath that he forgot he had been holding onto the entire time.

\-----------------------------------------v^v^v^v^v^v^-----------------------------------------

Kylo Ren stepped out of the black Command Shuttle onto the abandoned planet at night in the midst of a heavy rain and dense fog; the soft white outgassing steam from the ship’s engines mixed with the spatters of rain and mist, creating a vast blanket of humid visual annoyance. The dark warrior strode out into the night, his fingers hovering over the lightsaber that hung at his side; that flicker of warning had returned, and it made him anxious. 

It was an unusual little disturbance in the flow of the Force; as he walked towards an unlit grey durasteel building that bore several deep gouges in the door, the disturbance became louder and more insistent. It was now screaming a constant noise in his mind. The voices oscillated between a pleading warning for him to turn back, a seductive call for him to approach further, a hatefully snarled threat, and a cry for help. All voices called out simultaneously, like a chorus of insane birds all singing different discordant songs at once. It was a song of madness ringing in his brain.

Kylo Ren pushed the door open with a hard shove; a collection of pine needles and other forest detritus had collected on the other side of the old grey door – clearly it had not been opened in a very long time… from that direction at least. The maddening song in his head became louder and clearer as he roamed the halls, his torchlamp illuminating the dusty Imperial-era consoles and the forms of various pieces of dead laboratory equipment. He reached out into the darkness with his Force-senses; the insanity and voices seemed to be coming from a room at the end of a long hall strewn with office chairs and computer parts.

He hoisted the lamp high, swinging it around from left to right as he negotiated the narrow hall; the silver metal that lined the hallway had been melted and reformed unnaturally, creating many impossible whorls and curls of tortured durasteel. Kylo drew his lips into a thin line with concern; durasteel had an incredibly high melting point – his own lightsaber was capable of cutting through it with some effort, although a simple hand-held blaster could not do much more than scorch the metal - however whatever power or method that had warped these walls so terribly was not anything that he could easily conceive of or recall.

A door marked the end of the hall of twisted metal, its flat grey surface dented and slightly rusted with age. A trickle of rain dripped through the aging ceiling, spattering the walls with flecks of black and green mold and shining moisture. A warning sign hung slackly to one side; its lone rivet holding silent duty to warn the world of the dangers within: “REGENERATIVE BIOLOGICS LAB X-801-7: FULL LEVEL 5 PPE AND CLASS IX SECURITY CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR ENTRY” 

The emanations suddenly grew stronger and more distinct, the voices now distinguishable from one another; _‘HELP ME, PLEASE!! No, turn back… LEAVE NOW! I WILL KILL YOU, YOU STUPID MAN! Help me… You think that you know fear, power? I will SHOW you TRUE power! …help…? Such pain… SUFFER!! Run awa-DIE YOU TRAITOR!!’_

Kylo shook his head – the voices were beginning to unnerve his usual confidence and cold demeanor. Such pain, hatred, and torment burned with the words, which came to him in a somewhat faster and more panicked fashion as he drew closer to their unseen source. The dark warrior clipped his torchlight to the front of his left shoulder and ignited his lightsaber with his right hand. 

His black gloved hand carefully twisted the door handle and pushed inwards – and into a completely empty room, save for an overturned desk and a few files strewn about the floor. The flat silvery grey walls reflected and bounced the white light of his torch and the ruby red glow of his lightsaber around like embers from a smoldering fire under a bright moonlight. His quick eyes darted around behind the heavy black and silver mask, looking for any sign of the source of the bizarre echoes from the Force. 

Suddenly the creak of a sheet of paper being disturbed came from behind the desk. Kylo stepped wide towards the noise, holding his crackling, sparking fiery saber defensively before him – and saw a human woman, with wide, terrified eyes staring back at him from behind the destroyed desk. Her hands were bound tight behind her back with a pair of heavy steel cuffs and her mouth had been gagged with a dirty colored cloth. Her sparkling eyes held terror in them, but also relief. She struggled in generally place but made a few obvious efforts to crawl towards the tall black-clad man, her voice trying desperately to speak over the gag. 

Kylo was completely internally thrown off balance. The voices were still wandering around the room, distracting and taunting him stronger than ever, but they were not focused anywhere specifically. The only thing that he could determine in the haze of strange words and emotions was that they were not coming from the bound woman. He kept the fiery lightsaber aimed at the frightened woman for a few moments longer, before becoming comfortable with the conclusion that she was not a threat. He lowered his weapon off to one side, but kept it on and blazing away in the musty darkness. The woman’s face was slightly dirty and bruised, as if she had been left tied up and wriggling around on the floor for a very long time. Her long hair was disheveled but surprisingly clean, and she wore the white and gray clothing of one of the First Order’s research team. 

The tall man reached down cautiously and plucked the stained white cloth gag from her light pink lips. The woman looked up at him with concern and then swallowed hard. “Thank you! Please sir, you have to get me out of here, they’re coming back to take me next!” 

Kylo tipped his helmeted head fractionally, in a movement of obvious confusion despite his emotionless mask. “Who is coming to take you?”

The woman shook her head side to side furiously. “I don’t know, I’ve never seen them. They knocked me out, tied me up and, took all of the others away, and once they get taken they don’t come back!” Tears began to build in her tired, desperate eyes. _“Please, we don’t have long… we have to leave now!”_

Kylo considered the ever-strange situation for a few moments, and then reached behind the struggling woman, taking a moment to carefully hold her cuffs up to his growling ruby red saber to cut them off with the bright snap of melted metal. The woman sat up, untied another unseen cloth from around her legs, and staggered to her feet by climbing up the upturned desk and Kylo’s black-clad left arm.

A snarling voice suddenly whispered into Kylo’s head, its location still indistinct and hazy, _'You think this is so simple? That **you** are in charge here? I will show you my powers… and then I will enjoy watching you die in agony.'_

The woman exhaled strongly with relief and exhaustion as she peered up into Kylo’s expressionless mask. “Thank you”. 

He said nothing, but simply watched her with detached curiosity and confusion over the disembodied voice’s warning.

Suddenly, a huge explosion sounded nearby, nearly shaking the woman back down the floor with a surprised squeak. Kylo’s masked head snapped around at the blast as he raised his lightsaber once more; _what the hell was that? Who else is in here aside from us?_

The woman shook her head and screamed. “RUN!! They’re trying to trap us in here and kill us!!”

Kylo, unsure of the exact source of the explosion and none too interested in finding himself inside of a second one of that size, helped the disoriented First Order researcher back up to her feet and charged with long strides down the twisted hall, half carrying her with him. 

As soon as he cleared the doorway, he could see that the first room that he had entered, the one full of old monitors and lab equipment, was now ablaze in brilliant orange flames. The form of the woman suddenly felt light; her grip slid away as she fell unconscious. A hateful voice suddenly cried out in Kylo’s mind, “DIE, TRAITOR! YOU WILL SUFFER!!” He gathered up the woman with an annoyed snort and ran to the mouth of the hall, his quick eyes searching for a path through the fire – _there_. 

A reasonably traversable pathway across the destroyed lab led through the fire to the exit door. Black smoke billowed to the ceiling, choking the air with an acrid, burnt-electronics odor and smothering the two in darkness. Kylo hopped up to the top of a lab table and ran towards the door with his head down, trying his best to avoid breathing in the toxic smoke. Another explosion sounded off behind him just as his feet hit the ground in front of the exit; Kylo half-rolled out of the building onto his feet and into the rain and fresh, foggy air once more. He turned back towards the little gray building just in time to watch a third explosion level it to the ground in a spectacular display of orange flame and sparks. 

The sweet odor of fog and the rain fell around him, tamping his cloak and robes down flatly to his body, as he held the unconscious researcher and watched the fires burn brightly into the night. 

_The voices... were suddenly silent._


	2. Reboot From Disc

Kylo Ren paced the halls of the _Finalizer_ in visible frustration, his cloak billowing out like a black contrail as he stomped back and forth with heavy steps. The researcher from the abandoned planet had not yet awakened from her bout with unconsciousness, and he had some fairly important questions to ask her. 

_For starters, he wanted to know just what in the hell she was doing down on that world at all._

No fingerprint records, facial recognition scans, history, or familial relations were found about her in the entire database of the First Order to help piece together the identity of the mysterious woman from the research facility. 

After depositing her limp body into the emergency medical bay with a trauma and medic team several hours prior, Kylo had gone back down to the strange planet. His curiosity had not been satisfied in the least that the unidentified threats had actually been eliminated in the fiery explosion. Before landing, Kylo had ran a fresh scan of the planet from the Command Shuttle and had located several other buildings in the research complex, which were apparently over ten kilometers from the building that had called him to it with words of insanity and then perished in a fiery blast. 

In the largest building he met with the six other surviving First Order researchers. Kylo described the mysterious seperate research building to the confused research team; to a one, they all seemed to be surprised that such a dilapidated building had existed at all, and none could recall ever seeing or hearing anything about it. None of them recognized the photo of the woman either; only one of them suggested that she might have been a resupply technician, however no one who matched her description had worked on any of the resupply runs. The research team's primary building was spotlessly clean, in satisfactory working condition, and had functional power supplies for their experiments – a vast gulf of difference between the mildewed, derelict building that he had first entered. 

In fact after speaking with the researchers, he learned that reason that they had been concerned enough to contact the First Order command in the first place was because five of their number had gone out into the thick pine forests two weeks ago and had not returned or responded to their status checks. Four of the missing researchers were males, and the lone female researcher was an older lady with silver-gray hair that in no way matched the description of the mystery woman in the medical bay. 

Some people appreciated a mystery… _and exactly none of those people were Kylo Ren._

A mystery of this caliber was nearly as offensive as a lie, and a lie was a fool’s mix of insubordination and disrespect in his eyes; a mere smokescreen that was set in place by small minds to be dispersed and reveal the truth at his demand. And he would get his truths out of that strange woman.

Twelve hours passed since he had brought her up from the planet, and the Commander’s patience for the woman’s unconscious state had officially run out. 

He found his way down to the medical bay and marched up to the head medic with a huff. “You will awaken her. NOW.” The angry wraith did not need her to be conscious for him to get his answers, although it would likely cause somewhat less damage to her mentally if she could be awake for his interrogation proceedings. 

The head medic, a heavy-set man in black scrubs who was beset with thick glasses and a neatly trimmed beard of dark hair, flinched visibly at Kylo’s sudden, dramatic appearance in his medical unit. He clutched a small datapad to his chest, and referenced its words with the point of a finger. “Sir, with all due respect this woman is extremely neurologically fragile. I can’t even begin to understand what she’s been put through.” 

Kylo tipped his shining, helmeted head fractionally in slight confusion. _“Put through?”_

The head medic nodded. “She has some of the most extensive cerebrovascular damage that I have ever seen in living tissue... The blood vessels in her brain are just a womp-rat’s nest of scar tissue in various states of regrowth and decay.” He peeked up at the looming Knight, still nervous and walking on eggshells with each carefully chosen word. “If anyone other than you had stated she had spoken, let alone ever been conscious with this amount of neural injury, then I would say that they were…“ The medic swallowed a frightened lump. _“…terribly confused and mistaken.”_

The tall, brooding figure crossed his arms and stared down at the floor for a moment, pondering this. “What might have caused this damage?” 

With a defeated sigh, portly man shrugged his round shoulders once. “ _That_ kind of damage? Hell, I don’t know. It’s nothing like I’ve seen or heard of before. She quite frankly shouldn’t be alive.” Kylo snarled his lips in annoyance under his helmet. _Another god-damned mystery._

A shrill shriek shattered the stillness of the medical bay, sending Kylo’s hand flying to the hilt of his lightsaber and the medic’s datapad to the floor with a loud, plasticky clatter. 

The two men charged into the mystery woman’s room, where they found her drawn up into a ball with her back tucked into a corner behind the bed, watching a grey medical droid with wide, horrified eyes. The droid had pulled itself back in surprise at her response, it’s usual coarse beeping somewhat softened in an attempt to soothe the frightened woman. Programmed to aid fallen patients, the droid gently extended a smooth metallic arm to the woman… who promptly snatched a metal tray off a nearby cart and cracked it across the droid’s appendage hard enough to snap it entirely off. 

“HEY! That’s my droid, dammit!” the head medic shouted as he bunched up his dark brown brows in frustration as he looked sadly at his broken droid. 

The tall Commander suppressed an amused smile at the sight of the now armless medical droid pattering around helplessly at the far edge of the bed, trying vainly to find all of its broken pieces and muttering little beeps of disappointment. 

After several moments the woman’s attention finally flipped from the perceived – and now successfully ‘neutralized’ - threat of the droid to the two very different looking men standing in the doorway and staring down at her. She then focused hard onto the area where Kylo’s eyes would be on his mask with a surprisingly piercing glare.

The hot gaze of her brilliant, nearly raptorially sharp eyes caught the Knight off guard; she looked both at and through him as if he had not been wearing a helmet at all. Realizing this fractional moment of weakness, Kylo stared daggers back at her through the mask with doubled efforts, his own attempt to mentally regain the upper hand against her. 

The woman's breath came in quick pants as she wordlessly studied the tall, black-clad man. With a voice nearly a whisper, she finally spoke up, “You… you were the one who heard me in the darkness. You saved me.”

The dark man turned towards the rotund medic and dismissively waved him away. “Your presence is no longer required. I am taking custody of this woman until further notice.”

With a surprised squeak, the round-faced man turned towards the dark Knight with intention of pleading his patient’s case, but then quickly decided that he liked his neck intact just a little too much to do so. He left with a defeated nod, closing the heavy steel door behind Kylo.

His hidden lips curled up into a cold sneer, Kylo growled. “And you have not been honest with me in the least.” He exhaled a coarse burst of air through his vocorder. “Perhaps some time in the solitary wing of the brig will convince you to tell me who you really are.” 

The woman pursed her pink lips together in annoyance, her youthful face marked with high offense. “I have done no such thing! Who are you to accuse me of lies?” 

Kylo screwed up his lips tighter under his mask and took two long strides towards the woman, who remained on the floor and tangled up in part of her blue bedsheets. “You are NOT a member of the First Order... where did you get that uniform?" He narrowed his eyes under his glossy black helmet as he continued. "You _will_ tell me your name and just what you were doing on that planet, or I will get my information out of you in a far more painful way.” 

The woman furrowed her brows. "What I was doin-... Wait. My... _name?_ "

After a brief pause with no further response, Kylo spoke again, his tone tinged with growing impatience as he lifted his leather-clad right hand ominously towards her. “Tell me. NOW. This is your LAST chance.” 

After a moment of furious internal searching, the woman’s mouth drooped open slightly with horror as she delicately touched her lips with her fingertips. "I… _don’t know_. I know that I should though. But… _why can’t I remember my own name_?” 

Kylo Ren had officially had enough of her wampa-shit pathetic act. He growled and snatched his right hand forward and out, summoning a heavy bolt of the Force as he reached through her skull and into her soft brain with the pressure of his invisible powers. The tall man's anger wavered visibly around and through him, and pierced deep into her mind… and he hit no resistance... or anything else. Instead of encountering memories, or emotions, or mental walls, entering her mind was like hitting a formless black hole; a vacuum.

_Nothing._

The shocked Knight snatched his hand back as if he had been bit and hissed in surprise. The woman simply stared up at him as if absolutely nothing unusual had occurred; it was as if all of his power and anger had been broken and dissipated into utter ineffectiveness, like the crash of seawater upon immovable stones. Kylo hatefully gritted his teeth and shouted, the pride he held in his ‘unique’ abilities now somewhat injured and bruised, and raising his ire even more. “HOW DID YOU DO THAT!?” 

With a look of genuine bewilderment, the woman cocked her head and shrugged. “Do _what?_ ” 

_**That was IT.**_

Kylo roared and charged at her, snatching her up to her feet by the center of of her gray researcher’s shirt. He held her up against the wall, his rage now a primal shout; an unfocused, snarling and menacing fury set loose towards the small body of the woman. The metal tray she had hit the droid with clattered about nearby on the floor due to the invisible outward radiation of dark Force energies that were flowing from Kylo’s body in every direction. “ _You_ resisted my mind probe. HOW!!”

The surprisingly delicate-looking woman did not flinch or cower in fear from the fury of the dark Force user as expected, but instead glared at him from her position up against the wall with that same weirdly aquiline intensity from before. Kylo was suddenly vaguely aware of a feather-light, itching sensation in the back of his mind. Her eyes burned into him with sudden understanding. “You are _different_ … like me.” 

And with that, the woman’s face lit up with a malicious, yet disarming smirk as her right hand snaked forward and knotted deep into the black fabric robes on Kylo Ren’s chest… with effortless grace, she lifted him a full foot off the ground and upwards into the air. “ _However… I am simply better at this than you are._ ” She then threw his large body across the room and into a crash cart with the heavy bang of metal and flesh against smooth tile flooring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't start none, you won't get none! Sorry Kylo, you needed to get that ego of yours knocked down a few - well, several - notches.


	3. Identification Required to Proceed

Kylo Ren laid on the floor, his dark eyes wide with horror behind his imposing black mask as he struggled to put together what had just occurred. He could not recall the last time anyone had done anything like this to him... in well, _ever_ . Years of built up pride and confidence had shattered like fragile shards of glass across the cold floor of the medical bay when the he was lifted up and tossed like a small child by the small woman who stood before him. So much of his sense of self and ego had been buttressed by his confidence in his own Force abilities – _and now it all meant nothing._

The bizarre woman fluffed her shirt back up to its properly smoothed state and lifted her youthful head high as she walked over to Kylo. With an almost serene countenance, she folded herself down to rest her slender hands upon her knees and perched up on her tiptoes before his crumpled form. Her calculating eyes searched the terrified man from top to bottom, and then her pearl-pink lips broke out with a slight grin. “ _I shall assume that this will be the last time that you make an attempt to harm me._ ” Her expression softened a bit as she tilted her head, allowing a few long strands of hair to fall around her shoulders in an oddly playful way. 

Kylo’s masked gaze remained fixed and betrayed no visible emotion; his only movements were the rhythmic undulations of his terrified, quickened breathing. The stunned commander swallowed back a lump in his thickened throat; his wounded pride was aching badly, and his mind was still reeling from being so easily defeated by an unarmed woman who stood well below his rather imposing height. 

Realizing his fearful state and flicking her nearly undetectable senses out into crumpled Knight’s head once more, the woman slightly rolled her shoulders with a tinge of exasperation and an airy sigh. “I require answers and truth too, you know.” The woman squatted down lower to bring her face even closer to the nose of Kylo’s mask. Those terrifying, devilish eyes of hers burned into his as she spoke with an oddly commanding presence. “And you... will help me to find those answers, Kylo Ren.” A sudden curious look broke across her brows, and then drained into another evil smile. “Or should I call you by your true name… _Ben Solo_?” 

Kylo’s anger suddenly flared white hot – the disgrace of being thrown like a rag doll, the disrespect that this infernal female had shown to him, and now her ever so casual unearthing of an all but dead man’s name – his despised, true name - that had not spoken aloud in many years? From his awkward position on the floor, Kylo’s fingers simultaneously found the hilt of his saber, ignited it with a snap-pop, and launched himself up and at the infuriating young lady with a murderous cry… 

…Only to find himself helplessly frozen in place, ruby red saber still crackling furiously away in his right hand.

With a slight grin, the delicate looking woman slowly rose to her feet - those sparkling predatory eyes still firmly fixed on the trapped Knight, his body suspended in mid-leap an inch or two off the ground and completely unmoving. Kylo’s unfocused rage grew ever stronger the longer he remained frozen in the air; if his thoughts could kill, her head would have already burst open like an overripe bhoji fruit and coated the room in her damnable brains. Anyone else on the Finalizer would have ran screaming from the room from his roiling hatred… instead, the smaller female regarded him almost as one would a child’s toy... A harmless plaything. 

_Worst of all… he realized that could do absolutely nothing about it._

He had already tried attacking her outright and using several of his most powerful Force abilities on her, and she hadn’t so much as even validated his use of them. And now judging from her rather carefree attitude about his current captive situation, it appeared that she was both willing and capable of keeping him suspended in place like a damn statue for hours. 

Kylo’s Force-senses suddenly fell upon the distant but closing sensation from the pounding feet of a small squad of Stormtroopers approaching; the head medic must have heard the sound of Kylo’s enraged shouts - and the unmistakable sound of a heavy human body being flung through a metal crash cart and onto the floor - and had summoned help. A new terror shot through Kylo’s mind… Under NO circumstances could anyone be allowed to see him rendered so powerless. He would have lost all of the fear and respect that he had worked so hard to cultivate amongst the crew if even a single person saw him like this. The sight of the mighty Kylo Ren suspended helplessly in midair by another Force-user – a small, unarmed woman - would not be an image not easily forgotten. 

With no prior warning, the woman suddenly burst out with laughter; her mocking voice a sweet, sing-songy tone. “THAT’S what frightens you the most right now? Having others see you rendered helpless by me?! Such a weak little thing you are, underneath that mask and armor.”

Kylo gritted his teeth and seethed. She could read his thoughts with impossible ease… _How was she so seemingly strong with the Force, but gave off no readable signature as a Force-sensitive?_ The sound of the troopers’ footfalls came nearer; they were but a short jog away now. He had only seconds remaining before they arrived.

Having no other options and out of time, Kylo Ren, the Master of the Knights of Ren and Commander of the First Order… suddenly gave up in defeat. “What would you have me do?” he spoke at last, his deep, modulated voice a near whisper. He HATED bowing before another – _and in his eyes, an inferior other at that_ \- ever so much. It chafed and burned him to the bone in every infuriating way to be so demeaned and belittled. He was _better_ than this.

The woman must have understood his change of mind, as she abruptly released him to fall on his feet from the invisible prison just as the door burst open wide. A squad of white-armored Stormtroopers filled the doorway but immediately halted when they saw Kylo Ren – still armed with his fiery, crackling lightsaber - standing before a harmless-looking lady who wore the clothing of the First Order’s research and science division. 

Kylo glared daggers at the smirking woman, his intense focus never leaving her as he spoke through his robotic, modulated voice. He gritted his teeth in resentful anger… _Oh, for the ability to split her right down the middle from head to toe..._ “Your assistance is not needed, Troopers. This situation remains under control. Please return yourselves to your posts.” 

The squad leader nodded an affirmative and directed his men out of the room. “As you wish, sir.” 

The dark-cloaked man powered down his lightsaber with a _snap!-hssss_ and replaced the now inert steel hilt of his weapon to his hip. His body and ego seethed in bitter silence, but his brain had accepted that there would be no fighting with this woman; she would simply put him back into another invisible Force-prison or throw him into another wall if he tried attacking her. At the minimum, he needed to learn and come to understand his new opponent’s abilities a little bit better before he could try to cut her damned head off.

The woman tipped her head in a silent acknowledgement of his internal monologue. “Fair enough. Although I doubt even with additional knowledge that you possess the ability to remove my head.”

Kylo frowned beneath the mask. “How is it that you are reading my thoughts so easily, and without me feeling you inside my mind?” 

With a smooth stroke of her right hand through her soft hair, the woman sighed. “I can hear everyone’s thoughts as if spoken aloud… But Force-sensitives – that is the name by which you call your abilities, yes? – stand out to me like a beacon of light in the darkness. I am compelled for reasons unknown to me to hear the thoughts of those types of people above all others.”

She then tipped her head slightly to one side and looked towards the floor, as if spotting something intensely interesting down there. “I am drawn to hear the voices of those who are different, and somehow I am drawn to call them to me. Why that is and for what purpose, I do not know.” The slight woman flipped her penetrating stare back up to the dark holes in Kylo’s mask. “But that is what I wish to find out. That is the reason that I called you to me… and this is why you and you alone must help me in this task.”

Kylo snarled hatefully. “ _I_ am no one’s slave. I will not be ordered around like a child by the likes of you in order to solve your damnable personal mysteries.” He paused for a moment and drew himself taller in defiance. “You have already shown a tendency to lie and to hide your true nature from me; precisely how am I to believe that you will not attack me as soon as my back is turned?” His black cloak rustled softly as if caught on an unseen breeze from his flared emotional state, while she watched impassively like a stone.

The woman considered his thoughts with a soft smirk. “Unless you choose to attack me first, I have absolutely no intention of harming you, Kylo Ren. You are the only Force-sensitive person within several hundred light-years of our present location, and I must have the assistance of such a person. If need be, I will even defend you from those who would bring harm to you. In this you have my word.”

Kylo openly chuckled at this, his still bruised ego greedily lining up to launch another shot across her bow. “Defend _me_ ? Your misplaced arrogance seems to know no bounds.” 

With an evil grin, the woman poked a hard finger into the center of Kylo’s broad chest. “It is only arrogant if you cannot back it up. It is merely a statement of fact, otherwise.” Her countenance grew prouder and more commanding as she stood up straighter. “Your efforts to aid me shall be greatly rewarded, Knight of Ren. I have foreseen it.” 

Kylo pursed his lips in annoyance beneath his heavy mask; he still did not trust or like her in the slightest. 

The woman chose to ignore his angry, defiant thoughts and motioned with a quick tip of her head towards the door. “Now, I ask that you show me exactly where on this ship the fresh uniforms are kept. I wish to be rid of these dirty rags.” 

Operating against his will, Kylo Ren showed the mysterious woman the nearest uniform storeroom and allowed her to select a new set of clothes. The articles she chose were simple; black pants, shining black boots, a belt, a black tunic, and a black standard issue pair of bra and panties.

As they turned to leave, she stopped in front of one of the long gray hallways, detecting something on the edge of her senses, and she turned to travel down it. One of the co-ed shower bays for the Stormtroopers was right past the uniform storeroom, and naturally she had headed straight to it and demanded to be allowed ample time to wash the grime off of herself. 

The dark Commander paced the halls in seething rage and disgust at his ‘mistreatment’; he despised every one of her infernal ‘orders’, and he loathed every arduous moment that she remained in the shower bay. He felt like a chained, muzzled attack dog that was tethered to an uncaring master who wasted his time and abilities on a whim… and it burned him up inside.

After thirty minutes of standing in the hallway by the shower bay and frightening dirty Stormtroopers into using different shower facilities by his mere presence, Kylo’s patience had run out for the second time today. 

He marched angrily into the shower bay with his trademark heavy resounding footfalls to tell her that she needed to finish this garbage up or let him go back to his own business – and that’s when he found her, unconscious again and collapsed in a glistening heap at the base of one of the shower stalls. 

The steaming hot shower of water still rained down upon her soft, naked skin which was flushed red with heat, and her silken hair flowed around her onto the white tile floor like a bright halo of color. His face blushed pink under his mask at the sight of her beauty and feminine nakedness, before his brain kicked him into remembering that she was likely ill and could drown like a scale-rat at the base of a shower stall if her head rolled any farther down into the pooling water.

 _He also could choose to kill her now._

She was defenseless and unarmed, completely vulnerable. He could throw her out of an airlock and no one would have cared do to more than file it on a report. Kylo Ren was, for the most part, immune to punishment within the First Order due to his fearsome reputation and their need for his abilities. 

His murderous intentions abruptly switched to an even easier solution; he could simply stand by and let her drown in her own shower. Simple enough of a plan, and it mostly absolved him from any potential guilt over her death; after all she was the one who had wanted to take a shower in the first place, not him. It would be her own fault if she died in it.

However justified - in his eyes, it was of course _entirely_ justified - her murder by his action or inaction would be, the idea just simply wasn’t sitting right with him for some reason... A familiar itch appeared in the back of his head again, urging him against following his chain of thought.

With a snort of self-loathing, he reached down to gather up the woman’s body when an oddly placed dark pattern caught his eye from just below her right shoulder. It was a mark – _no, a tattoo_ \- about the size of a closed fist. The tattoo was a black circular shape, generally reminiscent of a sunburst or a cog within another circle, with a stylized red Phoenix bird rising upwards emblazoned across the middle. A small line of code read beneath the emblem – Kylo mentally translated out to the words to read _‘DARK PHOENIX IV’_ – and it was written in an archaic style of script… A style of script that was used only by the Galactic Empire. 

_Kylo’s blood froze in his veins._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooh... someone's got history. And Kylo got to see some skin too! Let's keep going, shall we? ;)


	4. Access Approved

Soft silvery light streamed down from above, blinding her tender eyes. The returning world was watery and uncoordinated for a moment before coalescing itself into a somewhat firmer condition. The odor of clean linens, musky sweat, and smooth leather permeated the cool mechanically recirculated air; the sensations of crisp bedsheets lay pressed to her skin from below, and a thin but surprisingly warm blanket lay across her still nude chest.

The bright, strong sense of another lifeform’s presence suddenly caught her senses; with a snap of crystalline awareness, she keyed in on the steady sound of rhythmic breathing and a dark mass extremely close nearby…

The woman fired herself upright in full panic-alert-mode… only to startle the nearby seated shape of Kylo Ren into launching himself into his full standing height, with his arms thrown open wide.

Kylo had been facing away from her at the foot of a wide bed in a mostly darkened room, his presence keeping a silent sentry watch but his eyes not staring at her nor noticing her return to consciousness once more. His black-gloved right hand still held in it a small gray datapad, its most recent search history still glued on images referencing the fallen Galactic Empire. 

Kylo’s eyes were saucer-wide beneath his mask, his breathing rapid and flighty from his scare. He swallowed back a nervous lump in his throat, and then mentally cursed himself for not putting even more blankets across the woman when she was asleep, because in her abrupt return to the realm of consciousness she had unknowingly exposed most of the smooth skin of her right breast down to the nipple. 

The Knight looked away, his dark masked face flushed hot with embarrassment and guilt for having seen yet again what he should not have. His emotional state and mental feedback must have been picked up a half second later by the oblivious young woman, who upon receiving it, furiously snatched the blankets back uptight to herself to cover her gracefully curved chest once more.

With a snort of annoyance, the mildly embarrassed woman finally spoke up in a whisper. “Why… Why exactly have you brought me to...' She looked around the bedroom for a moment of confirmation: '...your quarters? Would not a medical department have been somewhat more appropriate?”

Kylo turned back to face her, his body language slightly nervous with a barely noticeable - but _definitely_ there – layer of awkwardness intermixed with his posture. “The medical team here is unable to help you since your condition is so… _unique_ … so I brought you here to recover in private. Noone would dare enter into my quarters without asking well in advance, so you are safe to recover here in your own time.” 

She furrowed her delicate brows in frustration. “My… _condition?_ ”

Kylo tipped his helmeted head fractionally. “You keep falling unconscious at random times. The head medic stated that you have an unnatural amount of damage to your brain and blood vessels, something that he stated that you must have been put through deliberately by someone else.” The Knight suppressed a dark smirk. “He actually stated how he didn’t understand how you could even still be alive with that amount of neurological damage.” 

The woman turned her head away from Kylo to gaze down at the left side of his bed and floor in fleeting annoyance. “I am still very much alive, thank you very much.” She sneered in disgust as her cooling skin remembered that she was missing something… _important_. ”Where exactly are my clothes?” 

Kylo ignored her momentary impression of discomfort with a stiffened expression. “Your clothes are right here.” He gestured to a small silver nightstand by the right side of the bed, where her new black clothes lay in a tidy pile. “I wrapped you up in my cloak and brought you here, so that no one else would see you. It was out of necessity that I not waste time by attempting to clothe you before transporting you to privacy.” 

Her hawk-like eyes blazed with furious fire. “While that appears to be correct, you _did_ most certainly see me unclothed for a longer than was necessary amount time. I can see it in your mind... And you keep thinking about something you saw for the first time on my body.”

Kylo was stunned, his mouth agape behind his stony-faced black mask. His mood quickly soured into a thorny mix of embarrassment and rage as he offered his spluttered, spit-stained explanation. “Of course I did! I had to!! Y-y-ou fell unconscious in the _shower_. Would you rather I let you drown face down in there?” He gathered himself, his integrity being called into question like this was a rather high insult. “Search me for yourself. I did absolutely nothing untoward to you while you were unconscious. I did only as I stated, and I do not appreciate your insinuations about me.” 

The woman grinned evilly, her slightly damp hair frizzed out in random locations. “I never insinuated anything about your behavior towards me, only the fact that you keep thinking about something you saw over and over again.” She rolled her eyes away from him. “My, my you are so defensiv-“ 

Her head cocked in the fractional manner that was universal to confusion as she picked up on a memory floating through Kylo’s mind just then. “Wait… you… took a _photograph_ of what you saw?” 

If Kylo Ren’s face could have been visible now, it would have burned as bright red as a Rancor’s blood.

“NO!!” Kylo turned away in utter horror, his face hot like a bonfire on the sun. His tight black fists quivered visibly against his body in raging heat.

A truly malevolent smile slowly broke across her face as her senses swiftly parsed his brain and found full confirmation of exactly what she expected to see in the young Knight’s memories. “Ahhh. I see now why you were so quick to leap to the defensive earlier. It would appear that most of your embarrassment stems from the fact that mine was simply the first naked _female_ body that you’ve ever seen in the flesh.” 

_Damn her and damn the Force, for all the good it was doing for him now. HOW could she have figured out… THAT?!_

The dark Commander's brain ran through several choice expletives and insults for the evil woman seated across from him, his teeth clenched tight and large fists shaking. He was completely humiliated and had nowhere to hide from her knowing eyes. After a few terrible moments, Kylo whispered a tiny defense. “ _I took that photograph in order to **help** you. I meant absolutely nothing lecherous by it._ ” 

Feeling his boiling fury and realizing that they BOTH now knew the REAL reason for his embarrassment, the woman softly smiled at him as all of the anger bled from her face. Her pearly-white teeth and plump pink lips pursed innocently as she spoke, her words as soft and as soothing as syrup. “I sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding then... No need to discuss further… what we both now know.” 

The fine hairs on the back of Kylo’s neck raised tensely. 

_Damn her straight to hell and back again._

Still not turning to face her, he solidly marched towards the door with the datapad in hand in an obvious huff. “I… I need to attend to some important business elsewhere. I shall return later… You may rest here for now.” With a flip of fluttery black clothing, Commander Kylo Ren slipped out into the hallway, the mag-lock door sealing shut with a tight hiss behind his loud boots. 

A curious sensation of victory achieved at last, the pleased woman snuggled herself deep into the nest formed by her bedsheets and fell quickly asleep with a wicked grin spread from ear to ear. She could still hear Kylo’s internal cursing monologue from the other side of the ship as he took his anger and frustrations out on a communications platform with his lightsaber… the poor, humiliated - and as she had just learned, still sexually innocent - young man’s misery felt oh so _satisfying_ to her for some reason.

\-----------------------------------------v^v^v^v^v^v^-----------------------------------------

_‘ARISE, MY DARK PHOENIX… AND AWAKEN ONCE MORE.’_

_“NO! LET ME SLEEP FOREVER!... I DON’T WANT THIS LIFE ANYMORE!!”_

_“You crave my power. You won’t deny yourself… you MUST possess it.”_

_“NO! I NEVER ASKED FOR POWER! I will NOT obey you! Stop this… I don’t want- NO! I won’t do this again!!”_

_“You WILL OBEY ME. You have no choice. BIND him to your will, BREAK him with your power… and we will RISE AGAIN.”_

_“He… NO. He’s not part of this.”_

_“He is bound to their treachery by blood… He is more at fault than any of others you have killed, and he DESERVES a traitor’s death.”_

_“YOU KILLED THEM, NOT ME! Leave him alone, you fiend!”_

_“YOU THINK YOU CAN FIGHT ME? I AM YOU, AND YOU WILL OBEY ME!!”_

_“I WILL... I… **NO** …”_

Darkness once more forced itself to eject her from its silken embrace as her dream world was rattled to a stop by the efforts of an unseen source. Her eyes fluttered open – the looming black mass that was Kylo Ren stood there, a hand gripped hard down on each of her shoulders. He had been shaking her and trying to coax her back to reality. 

An intensely strong feeling of genuine concern flowed through his smooth gloved hands and into her warm skin. She could not see his face, but could clearly read his worried, tumultuous emotions.

“You were crying out while you slept… Fighting something, or someone in a nightmare. I couldn’t tell which.” Kylo Ren seemed…uneasy. Fearful even. But he was fearful for her well-being in an oddly protective sort of way that he hadn’t been up to this point.

The woman pursed her plump lips and aimed her eyes hard towards the gaping eye holes of Kylo’s black mask. Kylo Ren’s attitude towards her - if anything prior to now - had been a rogue’s mix of the mostly sarcastic, defensive, and angered, or merely some sort of variation on the theme of harm or a mortal threat to her life. She had also jabbed him too – purposefully, and mostly for her amusement - with several insults to his abilities, his petty fears of disrespect or personal failing, and yes, she had most recently even poked at his non-existent sexual experience. And yet now his entire countenance seemed so deeply concerned for _her_ well-being; his emotions simply oozed a softness and reverence. 

She was _immediately_ suspicious of this. 

“What… happened… while I slept? Something about you is _different_.” The sparkling, raptorial eyes narrowed, trying to read the tall man’s dark mind with her barely awakened and still sleep-fuzzy senses. A blinding flash of knowledge sparked from Kylo’s mind into hers, which caused her eyes to widen. “You know _something_ new about me.”

Kylo Ren turned his entire body to face her, before reaching up to his mask and finding two indentations with his fingertips. With the soft hiss of released compressed gases, the heavy black and steel mask slid forward and out from his face as he lifted it upwards. What he had kept so well concealed beneath all the black and silver steel was a porcelain pale, long, angular, and inexplicably handsome face, with a frighteningly expressive pair of deep-set golden-brown eyes that reflected well the soft silver light from the inlaid lighting panels in the ceiling. Tiny chocolate brown moles and freckles spattered his skin and slightly-too-big-for-his-face nose like dark stars, and a thick mane of luxurious, raven-black locks fell to his shoulders from the top of his head. His surprisingly soulful eyes met hers in an almost sensual and disarming way. 

His voice, now no longer concealed by the heavy mask and vocorder’s robotic modulations, was a thick mix of rich sonorous tones. “You worked for the Galactic Empire as some sort of special operative for the highest levels of command. An above top secret organization of the Imperial Special Forces, in a sense.” The piercing dark eyes never left hers as he continued speaking, his voice deep with hushed awe. “You were hand-picked for your services by Emperor Palpatine himself. Chosen… for his protection.”

The woman drew her head back with a confused expression. “I… I don’t recall any of this.” 

Kylo smiled warmly for the first time in her presence. “With all of the neurological damage that your brain has incurred, and the unaccounted for thirty-year gap in time since the death of the Emperor, I wouldn’t doubt that you have some gaps in memory.”

Her bright eyes flicked towards Kylo, and then back to her unblemished hands. _Did these tiny hands of mine really defend the Emperor? Why would **he** of all people need defending? And why don't I remember ANY of this?_ She paused in confusion. “How do you know any of this about me?” 

Kylo nodded to his datapad and handed it to her. The image was a high-resolution image of the black cog of the Galactic Empire with a red phoenix over it. “You have this image tattooed onto your right shoulder. I noticed it when I went to pick you up from the shower. The photograph that I took earlier was of your shoulder… I used it to cross-reference against images in our data files to discover your history…”

His expression suddenly took a notable air of disappointment. “Unfortunately, your name is not recorded anywhere in the databanks of the First Order. However, much of the old Imperial information was lost during the Battle of Endor and the destruction of the Second Death Star, when their primary data servers were destroyed.” 

Her eyes danced around the small grey datapad with refreshed fervor, and then stopped on a copy of the photograph that Kylo had taken of her back tattoo. “ _’Dark Phoenix IV’_?”

Kylo nodded in an affirmative. “That is the only words that your tattoo is marked with.”

She peered up at him, and then back down to the image with confusion. “ _Dark Phoenix_. I don’t think that was my real name… At least, it doesn't feel like my name.” 

The tall man nodded, his shiny black hair bouncing slightly from the movement. “Likely it was not, but it could have been the name of your specific unit, or perhaps an operative designation.” 

Her glittering eyes angled up towards his pale face again, her expression somewhat curious towards some of the odd sensations that she was receiving from Kylo. Whatever his exact reason was, the depth of awe and wonder coming from the young man for her past was actually beginning to become off-putting and slightly repulsive. “Why does the notion that I may worked for the Galactic Empire as an agent of the Emperor seem to bring you such deep… _pleasure_? Your entire emotional state and attitude towards me has changed completely… as I recall you wanted to cut off my head and split me in two with that red lightsaber of yours just a short while ago... and now I feel as if you want to venerate me and my past like a holy relic.” 

Kylo stepped closer and bowed his head deeply in an odd expression of reverence, his hands almost quivering from within. His deep, velvety voice was laced with emotions so strong that all that he could muster to bring to the surface was barely registering as a whisper. “My grandfather was a member of the highest levels of command in the Galactic Empire… Like you, he also served the Emperor Palpatine as his master. Through his efforts, he worked to bring power, stability, and order to the Galaxy.” He slowly lifted his strong, deeply angled face up from the shadows and into the light, his deep brown eyes meeting hers in a laser-sharp gaze of burning intensity. 

“… My grandfather… _was none other than Darth Vader himself_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh yes. It all makes sense now. Sorta. Kinda. ::waves hands dismissively:: Ehh, just read on. It will. <3 
> 
> Also, an easily embarrassed virgin Kylo is what is best in life, and you all damn well know it.


	5. Connection With Network Established

Two echoingly silent hours had passed since Kylo Ren had admitted his unexpected familial connection with the former Dark Lord of the Sith to the bewildered young woman. The enigmatic young man believed that he had uncovered a vital link between herself and the Galactic Empire of old that his grandfather had served as well… However in spite of his confidence in his hypothesis, she was not entirely convinced of its truth, her tattoo of the emblem of one of the Empire’s most top-secret command level organizations notwithstanding. 

Kylo had excused himself shortly thereafter his little revelation to attend to more research; when he had left, his eyes were still glittering with that same creepy sense of awe and reverence every time he had stolen a glance at her. And to her, it was still an obnoxious sort of attention – _Adoration? Fandom?_ \- that she did not want from another. 

Sliding into her slender black First Order boots and sitting herself back down on Kylo’s bed with a long, tortured sigh, the woman pondered her current situation with growing concern. Shouldn’t she feel _anything_ for this ‘past’ that Kylo Ren’s investigation had uncovered? After all, if she had been one of the Emperor’s most prized jackboots, wouldn’t she have remembered some small piece of it? The vexed young woman reached back into the depths of her mind, scraping at the raw walls of her broken memories for any tenuous thread to grasp… _Nothing_. All she felt was a hollow resounding darkness; a void. 

Her hawkish eyes flicked open with frustration at her inability to recall anything, when suddenly an interesting idea struck her. Why not start from the beginning of what she _could_ remember, rather than what she _couldn’t_? Focusing down hard, she flipped backwards through the pages of memory in her mind’s eye. 

With a gasp, she realized that the first thing that she could remember at all was the Force-signature of Kylo Ren somewhere out in the darkness of space. She had called to the fuzzy, flickering energies of the dark warrior and summoned him to her. Somehow she had just known that only someone who was ‘different’ like her – a person who was relatively strong with the Force - could sense her still-small voice over the distance of time and space… and he had been just that person. Against all of the infinitesimally small odds, the connection that had brought her to this place and this moment had been the outcome of a mere fraction of chance and the randomly lucky proximity of the Force-user, Kylo Ren.

But where had she been before she had got to this place? Kylo had mentioned a planet… and researchers… And the clothes she wore were researcher's clothes... _But where had they come from_?

In searching down that twisted mental pathway, she realized with a hard jolt that she couldn’t even recall how she got to the _Finalizer_. Her first memories of the great Destroyer itself was of being frightened by some damned medical droid – the young woman abhorred droids for several reasons that she couldn’t easily explain... to her they were foul, synthetic-life mechanical monstrosities with no Force-signatures whatsoever – and of overpowering Kylo Ren in the medical bay in order for her to gain his not-inconsiderable skills at investigation and research within the First Order and to force his cooperation. 

The woman’s soft pink lips pursed in delight at that particular memory. She had not admitted or shown it at the time, but overpowering the confident young man had been… _exciting_ for her. Pleasurable even, in a rather visceral, sexual, animal kind of way. He had come at her with the full force of his well-honed fury and strength, and she had thrown him against a wall like an insect and held him in the air helplessly while the large man had struggled with all of his might. And she _had_ liked it, watching his cocksure, sarcastic body be cast down and broken before her like that with her merest thoughts. It was a sensation that somehow felt wrong to her, an emotion that she didn’t want to know that she could have… and yet one that she had found herself taking deep pleasure in having. _It was power._

Ahhh. That was it. _Power_. She could feel it roiling within her and burning to escape; an unspeakable fury within her lay coiled like a venomous snake, its elegant form poised and ready to strike out at the world at her slightest command. And as she had just learned, some small piece within her had liked to see such strong people fear – yet not revere, as Kylo Ren had done over her 'history' with the Empire - the power within her… a power which even she did not understand herself.

A sense of ominous electricity burned in her chest as her mind drifted back onto the thoughts of throwing the dark Force-user around. With an evil smirk, her mind began conjuring even darker and more sinister images of the young man... him thrown down to his muscular knees, his large hands raised wide in a begging posture for her to release him, the hot tears streaming down that pale, handsome face of his, his innocence broken, the tall man's slender, naked body bound tightly and flecked bright red with bloodstains... 

At that thought, a sudden course of deep, bone-rattling power flowed in her body and pulsed through her veins. The surge caused her to inhale sharply and stretch and retract her fingers in a single cascading, languid motion. She luxuriously cracked her silken neck with a twist-pop; her vibrant white teeth shone in the dim room like fine ivory, her sparkling eyes alight with a hot-burning black pleasure that had built from within her belly like a crackling flame and rose ever upward to her skull. The longer she was awake and the more she dwelled on these darker thoughts, the more that the black fire inside her seemed to grow… and the more that she found that she _liked_ to feel it grow. 

And that _terrified her_... but not enough to not test out those powers, and to taste whatever delicious, forbidden fruits that it could hold. But who to test the extent of her abilities against? Of course... _Him_. 

Her darkened, somewhat aroused mind reached out into the distance, and touched the inside of Kylo Ren’s...

Kylo was hard at work, poring over several softly lit computer consoles at once, at one of the battleship gray command stations on the _Finalizer_. He had been following up on the missing researchers – who had still as of yet, not shown up on scans or as dead bodies – as well as on the broken, fragmented history of the mysterious Dark Phoenix organization within the Empire. His black and silver mask reflected the dimmed, quickly scrolling images from his most recent planetary scans and the data from the archival library. His eyes were heavy; he had not slept in several hours, yet he felt compelled to solve the mysteries that were just out of his reach.

Suddenly, a hot, burning itch formed in the back of his mind, right above the base of his skull. The pain was strong enough to make him gasp and reach reflexively around to the hood of his cloak and feel for blood… Nothing. The pain dissipated almost immediately. 

The tall, black-clad Commander searched curiously left and right down the corridor – no one was there but a few gray and black clad command and communications workers, who looked positively uninterested in his sudden surprise. The rather alarming sensation had indeed been real, however it did not register as something associated with the Force. Perhaps he was more tired than he thought. ‘ _Just a little bit more… you can hold out for that last scan to complete_ ’… 

An unexpected heat burned into his head from everywhere and nowhere at once, the energy coalescing into a single, crystal-clear image... The image of the woman from the Imperial Dark Phoenix organization who even now he could sense was still in his bedroom. Her silken-haired, glistening body was naked and exposed, her curves spattering droplets of hot water under the shower just like before.

Kylo grabbed the console before him with both hands for stability from the abruptness of it – _where in the hell had this image come from_?! His exhausted mind was on data scans and his desperate need for sleep just moments before, but now, he could think of nothing but the exquisite vision before him. Heat began to pool in his belly as he involuntarily took in the images with a wide-eyed gulp…

The vision of the naked woman slowly began to change somewhat from what he remembered in his hours-old memories; instead of lying frail and unconscious on the floor, she slowly opened her eyes – those fantastically deep pools of sparkling color – and lifted her body upwards from the warm, white tile floor in a seated position towards him. Her soaked silken strands of hair ran down her shapely back and chest, like the lines from a fine artist’s pen. She gently smiled up at him, exposing the sharp points of her ivory teeth beneath her nearly red lips as she ran her delicate hands and fingers from her shoulders to fronts of her rounded thighs in a single, sensuous movement, taking care to circle her breasts once with pleasure. 

Kylo was dumbstruck and drew his hands back to his sides, where they clenched and unclenched awkwardly. His mind’s eye traveled down her sultry gaze to rest upon all of her sculpted nakedness… ' _Beautiful. Perfect_.', he guiltily thought to himself. His hungry eyes locked on her pink nipples, which shone against her skin like tiny, water-spattered jewels; two specks of feminine landmarks set against the landscape of her breathtaking body. 

A burning sensation in his throat caused him to reflexively swallow as sweat began to bead on his brow beneath the mask. The woman in his vision slowly lifted herself to a standing position and raised her left hand to his cheek and jaw; her fingertips held both weight and warmth, the sensation so realistic that Kylo found himself physically tensing under their feather-light touches.

 _I want you to feel more than just this._

She turned her fingers round and stroked his angular cheek with the back of her hand, letting it fall down his neck and chest as if somehow he were not clothed at all. 

His breathing pace quickened; the young man’s soft pink lips tinted darker with emotion and parted slightly with each hot exhalation. Her smooth right hand moved towards his chest, warm fingers tracing the outlines of his broad pectoral muscles and abdomen. 

_No, I want you to feel even MORE than this. Let me. It will be OK._

Slowly, the delicate hand slid down, the light pressure of her fingernails ghosting gracefully over the growing bulges of his lower body. His entire form grew taut with fear… and then relaxed into liquidity with an unexpected touch and a single heavy stroke from those firm, sensual hands. Her eyes remained fixed on his; the young woman's gaze burned hot into his dark, heavy-lidded eyes with all of the penetrating intensity of a predator. 

Kylo closed his deep brown eyes and inhaled softly with hot, blissful pleasure as the half-real hands plied and manipulated his stiff, hardened length in ways that he had never experienced before. His wispy thoughts now turned breathy and coarse with lust, as he pressed his mind’s body closer to the woman’s. She was silky soft and deliciously warm against him, and did not shy from having his greedy erection ground against her body. 

_There you go... Good boy..._

She responded by clenching his heating manhood tightly in a way that made him audibly squeak, before continuing her firm pumping ministrations and rhythm. 

_‘Please. Keep going, I’ll do anything. Just please… don’t… stop…’_ he whispered under quivering breaths, the words too soft and muffled to be picked up by his vocorder...

…The image suddenly slammed to a halt, leaving the young man to catch his falling body with both hands on the cold steel of the console before him. As his bewildered mind re-calibrated itself back to reality, he became suddenly, _painfully_ aware of his very highly visible state of physical arousal, which was slightly pressed against the smooth top of the monitor console station… which was in the middle of the command center’s communication room. With a horrified, humiliated gasp, Kylo bolted out of the com room, not bothering to shut off his console or the dimly lit monitors before storming out with a flourish of black fabric and burning embarrassment trailing behind him. 

Somewhere, deep within in the bowels of the gray starship that hung in the darkness of space, a woman dressed wholly in black flung herself down into soft, silken bedsheets and twisted herself up into an utterly satisfied little nest with a broad smile and a malign laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SMUT AHOY, CAPTAIN! ::snaps to a salute and then points ahead::
> 
> Also, our Reader-insert chick is somewhat of a bastard for giving poor, unsuspecting Kylo a bad case of blue balls in public... but take heart fellow fans, good things come to those who wait.


	6. Power Supply Stabilizing

The echoing click-clack of hard leather boots sounded through the great metal halls, their owner marching forward with a quick snappy pace. A slender hand pushed through the stray silken locks at her forehead as she went, her intense mind following the invisible trail of bread crumbs that led to the room where Commander Kylo Ren had holed up in after his humiliation on the command and communications level. 

She sneered with pleasure again at the ‘results’ of her little impromptu test of her mental powers against the only Force-user on board; her test had indeed confirmed that she could force him to think, see, or feel nearly anything that she projected into his open mind as if it were real. The fact that she had pulled him from a tired, half-asleep state into such an intensely sexual mood that he was nearly brought to orgasm had been a delicious treat. The fact that it had occurred in public, at the head of the command center of the ship, had only been icing on the already delectable cake. 

As she reached the flat black featureless door panel that held his distinctive energy signature behind it, having no keycard or clearance, she simply waved her hand with a _hiss-schwik!_ and the door slid invitingly open for her. Within, she could see the black lump of Kylo Ren’s body slumped back into a wide leather chair, his fingers free from their gloves and massaging his mask-less forehead with an obvious tired sense of frustration and headache. 

A momentary flicker of electric connection between the two Force-sensitives proved that he had indeed noticed her entrance, however he made no physical acknowledgement of it.

“Why are you here?” he muttered with obvious exasperation, long fingers continuing to rub his tired head. “I have work to attend to.”

Her grin smoldered with malicious intent; she would not tell him about the results of her mental abilities tests against him, or of how she had been the instigator of his embarrassing sexual visions. That of course didn’t mean she wasn’t going to jab him a bit over it to watch him squirm. “I could sense that you were thinking about me, so I came to see what it was you needed.” she answered, innocently. 

Ice shards formed in Kylo Ren’s cold veins as gooseflesh rose on his arms and legs. His square shoulders crunched up with a tense, involuntary twitch as he hid slightly behind his stilled fingers, their tips pressed hard against his forehead. “I don’t know what you are talking about. I… was simply tired. I was not thinking of you, only of my research.” 

_A boldfaced lie._

Kylo prayed with every ounce of his being that it was a lie that would work, too. He didn’t know exactly how much power over the mind she possessed – so far her powers in the use of Force had been terrifying exceptional, and she had read his thoughts with ease in the past - however he secretly hoped that she wouldn’t actually fact-check his answer for the truth if he acted the exhaustion bit up enough. The tired bluff was his only chance to hide the truth from her.

The sinister woman slowly walked up beside him and placed her left hand on his right shoulder as she paused at his side. “Is that so?” she said as she squeezed his broad shoulder a tiny bit, making him wince. Her voice lowered smoothly, her tone as soft as silk and as dangerous as ground glass. “Is ‘research’ simply a codeword of yours for _‘finish yourself up in privacy’_?” 

And with that, hot red blood turned to solid glaciers in the young man’s body.

His wide, horrified dark eyes darted up to hers – she regarded him with a single all-knowing, down-tilted eye that seared into his like a laser beam - then he snapped his head away to contemplate the glassy black floor in complete humiliation. With no mask to hide his terror or flushed emotions, Kylo’s pale, handsome face burned as hot as his lightsaber.

The smaller woman chewed her pink bottom lip in delight at the young man’s misery. “Red is a good look for you.” She patted his shoulder condescendingly as she strode past him into the room.

Kylo unconsciously drew his long legs up into a tight, defensive knot as he squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. A flood of expletives poured through his mortified, furious mind. She saw right through him - _why again had he even bothered to try and deceive someone who could read minds better than himself?_ \- and she knew exactly what he had seen and felt… and if that wasn't bad enough, it was just made _absolutely crystal clear_ that she also knew _exactly_ what he had done afterward to relive himself and his... _'frustration_ '.

 _Damn her and damn the Force itself_. 

The woman, choosing to ignore the tall young man’s mental shitstorming, paused at the opposite end of the room, her back towards the embarrassed, awkward Knight. Her sharp eyes regarded the random buttons, lighted displays, and multi-colored switches on the wall panels with feigned interest. “I wish for you to take me down to the planet below, immediately.”

Intensely grateful for the break in the current conversation topic at hand, Kylo snapped upright in curiosity. “Why?”

The woman shrugged dismissively as she continued examining the mostly red and green shining buttons. “We will simply call it a hunch for now. I have... had somewhat of an _understanding_... and now I must know what happened down there to me... and what is happening to me.”

The Knight, still rattled from the events of the past few moments, searched his brain over for legitimate reasons as to her sudden interest in the planet and came up empty. “What do you hope to find down there?”, he pondered aloud.

With a slow, powerful movement, the beautiful lady turned round and gradually lifted her glittering eyes towards Kylo with piercing intensity. Her mouth was drawn into a stern razor’s edge as she spoke, her voice laced with a palling chill.

“ _Answers_.” 

  
\-----------------------------------------v^v^v^v^v^v^-----------------------------------------  


The black, predatory-bird shape of the Command Shuttle soared low over the pre-dawn pine forests, the planet’s too-large blue sister moon taking up a good portion of the night sky. Kylo Ren eased down on the throttle, the heavy ion engines droned their soft, slowed reply as he began the landing procedure and aimed for a clearing. The intense hawk-stare of the woman had not ebbed a bit since leaving the _Finalizer_ ; she was even more on edge and angrier than normal right now. 

“Not here. _Farther_.” she said with a barely contained growl.

Something was _definitely_ infuriating her; however gratefully, that _something_ didn't feel like himself. Kylo pulled back on the controls and rose higher over the brightly lit research facilities and back into the night sky before looking over his shoulder at the woman with confusion in spite of his masked countenance. Her face was drawn tight like a drum over clenched teeth, and her radiating energy was a barely contained tempest of anger. Something unknowable vexed her greatly, that was for certain.

The obliging Commander offered her what he had in knowledge, as he tried to guess where her hunch was taking them. “Those buildings are the primary research complex and scientific laboratories. The secondary research complex is unoccupied, and extends out for three kilometers. The primary houses the remaining scientists and their power supp-“ 

She coldly broke him off mid-sentence. “You will take us to where you first found me.”

Kylo screwed up his plush pink lips in confusion behind his mask. “The… building where I found you exploded; there is nothing left but a crater.”

The hairs on the back of her neck rose like the hackles of an angry Garral. “Take me there. _Now_.” 

The Knight shrugged and wordlessly complied as he turned the craft towards the location of the decimated building.

_What did she hope to glean from a smoking hole in the ground?_

As he came down and over the edge of the dark green pines to hit the landing zone, his eyes caught the sight of something totally unexpected – no, something _impossible_. The dilapidated research building that he had found the woman in… _still existed_.

It was fully intact, as if nothing unusual had ever occurred there. 

His mouth fell agape as the impossible became reality. “How is this possible? I… watched this place explode and burn to the ground. We hardly escaped before it blew up.” 

The woman’s cold, bitter glare turned towards Kylo, her black energy so intense that he was compelled to turn towards her for a moment. Her fists knotted up, the tendons within snapping audibly. “That… is what I must find out.”

Kylo landed the shuttle nearby and produced a torchlamp for himself and one for the woman from one of the small cargo holds at the rear of the imposing spacecraft. The woman snatched the small lamp from his hands and stomped away down the exit ramp, leaving the black-clad Commander to tip his head in utter bewilderment at the mysterious scene unfolding before his eyes. _‘At least the insane voices were gone’,_ he thought darkly.

She approached the same door that Kylo had before, and after a silent moment to regard its presence, blasted it inwards with a loud bang of rage and the Force. The tall Knight hesitated a moment, ignited his crackling red lightsaber with a _vsssh-pop_ , and cautiously walked in behind her. The eerie calm of the rotten building-that-should-not-exist-but-still-somehow-did unnerved him, as if he were walking through the bowels of a creature that had been cursed with unlife. 

The woman hissed as she shoved aside upturned silver desks and rotten laboratory equipment, her rage evident as she flicked her hands outwards and knocked several shelves and a large centrifuge into the walls that had not actually posed an obstacle for her pathway. Kylo lingered farther back, his large frame hidden in a somewhat defensive manner behind his snarling lightsaber; he could almost see her fury, visible in plain sight... and somehow, it evoked a deep-seated fear in his belly, which he tried repeatedly to quash. The young man’s quiet storm of terror only increased ever further as she marched forward into the darkness destroying random objects with unspoken hatred.

She entered the long metallic hall – and stopped abruptly. Her cold glare turned to the twisted, melted durasteel walls. She reached out and ran her bare hands over the sharp whorls of tortured metal, her eyes distant as if lost in a painful memory. With a snarl, she charged forward into the darkened hall, casting aside her torchlamp in the process. The blue-white light of the lamp spun round on the floor, throwing elongated nightmare shadows around the broken steel walls. 

Kylo furrowed his brow in annoyance; had she been anyone else, he could have seen precisely what she had been thinking at the moment by peering into her mind, or at the very least he could have sensed her emotional state well enough to have guessed what she was thinking with some degree of accuracy. With her however, all he could sense was whatever emotion she was most obviously emitting, which for right now was simply a hot, bitter rage.

A loud metallic bang in the dark sounded off, followed by a second one of similar volume. The sudden cacophony made the Knight flinch involuntarily; she must have found the doorway at the end of the hall and smashed it open with the Force. Drawing on his training and meditating a moment to center himself again, Kylo Ren ground his teeth, aimed his torch forward, and marched confidently ahead with his crackling lightsaber at the ready, in spite of his uncertainty and lingering fears. 

Another crash in the dark, and the sound of metal screaming against metal rang out. Kylo entered the mostly empty room that he had first found her in, and noticed that she had ripped a small panel off from the wall that he had failed to notice the first time through. The smashed panel had in turn, revealed a hidden, second doorway that led down into a set of unlit metal stairs. Orange sparks bounced from the knot of exposed wiring and cascaded to the file-strewn floor, their lights tumbling down the gaping maw of the dank black stairwell like the spit from an invisible dragon. 

Kylo swallowed a hard knot in his throat and descended the metallic stairs. His heavy footfalls echoed in the otherwise silent, narrow corridor for a hundred meters before he reached the bottom floor, which smelled strongly of mildew and industrial cleansers or solvents. Ahead a washed out, somewhat mechanical light shone pale through the darkness behind yet another smashed-in door panel and sparking control unit, which had undoubtedly been punched clear through by the raging woman. A small lighted display monitor blinked a steady static screen and lines of error codes, just beyond the shattered doorway.

The tall young man suddenly felt a harsh shift in the woman’s emotions – Sadness. Anguish. _Betrayal_. The loneliness of death and the timeworn grief of a life long since lost. The intensity of her feelings of misery and sorrow struck him unexpectedly hard, spurring him through his fears to break into a half run in the direction that his senses indicated she was in. He ran through a series of surprisingly expansive rooms and hallways filled with machine parts and laboratory equipment, his thick fabric hood thrown back and shining masked head flicking about as he searched for her… his large feet skidded to a sudden stop. _There._

The black figure of a woman stood silhouetted against a gigantic panel of monitors; the screens showed the same chilling blinking static and error code combinations as the smaller display had. In her finely sculpted hands, he could see a gray, military style Imperial datapad. Her eyes shone dead like frosted glass in the reflected lights of the pad and the monitors as she read the information before her with the hopeless look of the damned.

Kylo slowly approached and powered down his saber respectfully. He could sense that she had encountered something that had rattled her deeply to the core. Never once looking up at him, she swallowed grimly as she finished reading the information revealed on the pad. The Knight came to a halt a meter away, his bell-shaped, helmeted head aimed towards the pad and his brain desperately wanting to see what it revealed. With a snort, the woman detected his curiosity and jammed the pad into his large hands and turned away to feign study of the permanently trapped electronic loop shown on the monitor’s displays.

He instinctively looked down towards the thick steel pad to quench his brain's thirst for answers, but chose instead to force himself look back up to try and get a read on her emotional state again. Her energy nearly bubbled over now with obvious grief. Kylo hesitated before speaking, some small part of him still wanting to retain the stoic disregard for the well-being others that he had honed over the years, and for which he was most famous for in the First Order. He did not want to appear too concerned for her well-being or emotional state, but he also knew damn well that she could read the truth behind his actions and thoughts like an open book. With her, his impassive façade was only that. He was indeed deeply concerned for her… for he could tell that she was different, somehow. _Changed_... And possibly not for the better.

“You were _wrong_.” came her hollow voice before he could start to speak.

The Knight spoke quietly, his deep, mechanical voice lowered to a smooth whisper. “About what?”

She raised her hands outwards, expansively, her sweeping gesture indicating the entire room. “Me. Why I am what I am.”

Sensing her turmoil and feeling her presence edging closer to something even darker and more ominous than before, Kylo Ren reached up to his helmet and with a soft hiss, released it into his hands. His dark brown eyes were velvety soft, and his shining raven locks reflected the dancing light from the monitor’s displays like whorls of hand-blown straws of fine glass. “What was I wrong about? Tell me.” His deep, resonant voice was gentle and persuasive, like a strong current in a stream.

Hot tears rolled down her slender, shapely face as she turned towards him slowly with a surprisingly gentle expression. She was momentarily taken aback and broken from her grief by his unexpectedly exposed face; it was then that she understood why he hid his intense, soulful eyes from others so often - the handsome young man simply could not lie to you with them.

Those expressive obsidian orbs of his were a window directly into his unshielded soul, and only the truth lay there. For the first time, she felt a deep twinge of compassion for the strange young man who called himself Kylo Ren pull in her chest, as she kept her gaze locked onto those beautiful eyes of his. She could sense his honest concern for her, and the raw truth of it revealed in his eyes had surprised her into feeling the first flickers of a decidedly more _human_ emotion for him than she could have thought herself capable. 

Her voice cracked over a broken smile, itself a pained whisper as Kylo bit his soft pink lower lip in sympathy; the sensitive Force user was feeling everything that she was feeling inside without him being aware of it occurring. “I… am not at all what you thought I was. My mastery of the Force, the dark powers that possess and drive me... they are not my own. I was no elite soldier… I was _formed_... here in this very building… the shadow of my former life was crushed and broken in this place, its shattered remains created and molded anew for one purpose alone.” 

The tall Knight screwed up his plush lips in utter confusion at the truly bizarre revelation. Her tear-stained eyes burned into his with a nearly innocent emotion lingering behind them, as if this moment were the first time he had ever truly seen her for who and what she really was inside... Fragile. Vulnerable. _Mortal_. It was then that he realized that he was feeling her emotions and her pain throughout his body as if they were his own, and it moved the young Knight unexpectedly to be suddenly cognizant of such a terrifyingly intimate bond with another person's mind and soul.

Kylo lowered himself slightly to better meet her gaze. Between the flood of her emotions invading his mind and his own brain having trouble digesting the concept that a person could simply be made - like a machine - rocked his sense of place in the world; the whole idea was extremely disorienting. It made him feel smaller and the universe itself somehow even more hostile than before. Things that should have, and used to make sense, simply did not anymore. "You were… _created_? To… serve the Emperor?”, he spoke at last, fearfully seeking confirmation of her horrifying words and of his earlier hypothesis.

As if speaking the words themselves and answering Kylo's question would make what remained of her individuality and self suddenly wither and rot away, she chose instead to focus back on the face of the man before her as if it were the final time she would see him through her own eyes. Her voice broke off just as she opened her lips to speak, when abruptly her slender jaw snapped tightly closed from an unseen force. Her emotional state changed in a sharp about-face, as if a ghost had just infiltrated and overpowered her mind right before Kylo's wide dark eyes. 

Suddenly, the vicious, aquiline intensity that she had possessed from several hours before burned hot again like magma from just beneath the surface of her formerly gentle, sparkling eyes. With a resonating exhalation of air like the releasing gasps from a dying animal, her lip curled and her voice snarled, its tone commanding and darkly sinister once again.

“No, Kylo Ren. I… was created… to _become_ him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn Kylo, you sure know how to pick 'em, dont'cha. ::rubs forehead in exasperation::


	7. Master Drive Loaded

Kylo Ren sat in the tomblike silence of the Command Shuttle, his night-sky eyes furiously dancing over the grey steel datapad which, according to its timestamps, last saw the light of day sometime around the time he was born. The first rays of dawn cracked long shadows through the crisp pine forest, the stark black and white lines of light crossing the land felt both hopeful and ominous. For the young Knight however, nothing made sense anymore. The impossible had turned terrifyingly real around him, and it had placed him right at its dead-center.

_The legendary Emperor Palpatine, was slowly, inevitably, rising from the dead in a manner not seen before in the galaxy._

And the means by which his improbable resurrection would occur sat brooding and silent as she fiddled with the locks of a small metallic box. Kylo lifted his head from the datapad and watched with interest as her delicate fingers pinched the tiny lock and crushed the fragile metal between her fingers like dough, before flinging it aside with a loose rattle. Her inhuman strength was yet just another one of those recently discovered and terrifying impossibilities, the Commander noted with a slight downward twist to his lips. 

She hadn’t said much - if anything - after discovering and revealing to him the utterly terrifying nature of what she truly was. At the time, Kylo had been grateful for the quiet moment of breathing room; his brain needed some time to recover from the mental and emotional flood that she had overpowered him with, and for coming to terms with this new reality. Together, they had silently searched the dilapidated research facility with Kylo trailing behind her - his mind lost in thought for almost the entire time - for a few hours before finding the little metal box she now held and returning to the Command Shuttle. 

_The research facility…_ Kylo shuddered involuntarily at the bone-chilling memory of that forgotten tomb.

During their searching, the two had found several horrifying laboratory experiments left to literally rot in the wake of the death of the Galactic Empire; several death-browned human skeletons lay half mummified, their dried, insect-riddled, emaciated husks still chained to walls and clearly left to starve, a man’s severed head in a broken glass incubator, his tortured jaws drawn open in a permanent scream with a clear plastic ventilation tube still clutched within the fibers of his dry throat, parts of mildewed brains and bags of blood, all desiccated into ancient, rot-blackened dust. This nightmare was where she had been brought into being, where she had been _‘born’_. 

Born to become something that she by all natural right was never intended to become. 

Kylo Ren had seen violence and death before, but never things such as this. Men died in battle, men died from old age or disease, men died from accident. That was the way you died. Men did not die due to being starved because they were too unimportant to feed or torn apart for their constituent parts like derelict freighters at a scrapyard. Seeing the cold, callous nature of so many nameless, discarded human lives broken or ripped asunder and their rotting bodies left to starvation and decay, or simply turned into long-forgotten research objects had left a dark injury upon his very soul. And that deep cut through his heart was one which would haunt him until the end of his days. 

With a click, the woman popped open the top of small metal box at last. Kylo turned towards the sound, and watched as she picked around through its contents with her fingertips, searching for something. Her searching stopped abruptly; her shapely hand lifted and revealed a pair of highly ornate, phrik and electrum finished lightsaber hilts. Taking one in each hand and feeling their cold metallic weight, the woman expertly held them at length and ignited both of them simultaneously with a _hiss-vrrrkk!_ – two impossibly smooth red beams burned brightly in the dawn-dim light of the Command Shuttle. 

Kylo’s mouth fell agape with hushed awe at the sight. They were the long-lost twin lightsabers of Darth Sidious himself; themselves built during his apprenticeship to Darth Plagueis the Wise. Rarely used, and even more rarely seen, they were assumed to be destroyed at the Battle of Endor… but apparently that had not been so.

The woman – her face an impassive mask - deactivated the twin sabers with a _vrm-shicckk_ and clipped them emotionlessly to her belt, one on each hip. Her eyes suddenly tipped downwards in unexpected movement of curiosity and reached into the box again before producing a fine golden necklace against her fingertips. A faintly glowing pendant hung on the chain; it was a hand carved crystal of some unknown type, its pale blue faceted edges had been worked into the shape of a spread-winged, flying bird. She turned it over in her hands a few times, with widening eyes.

With a vicious hiss, the woman suddenly flung the pendant down the center hall of the ship and growled. Kylo sat the pad down in his lap, his dark brows furrowed deep in confusion as to what the pendant could have possibly meant to her for her to cast it away so hatefully. An unwanted memory, he guessed… but of what exactly? 

Tossing the empty box aside with a huff, the woman dropped herself hard into the copilot’s seat and glared forward at the encroaching dawn as Kylo turned slightly to regard her. The shining saber hilts glittered ominously against her hips in the morning light. She crossed her thin, black-clad arms across her chest in a sulk. “We got what we came for. Return us now to the _Finalizer_.”

Kylo nodded a quick affirmative and keyed in the launch sequence; the ship’s mighty ion engines hissed to life and broke the bounds of gravity for the floating blackness of space above. Upon landing in their designated bay a few minutes later, the woman impatiently stormed out and down the ramp of the Command Shuttle, and off into the gray steel bowels of the Finalizer while Kylo replaced his helmet to his head. He could sense the woman returning to his quarters to meditate on some issues that still vexed her; he found it odd that she had claimed his bedroom for her own, leaving him to seek the much needed embrace of sleep elsewhere.

As the tall Knight descended the ramp, a glint of gold caught his eye – the woman’s scorned necklace. His black-clad fingers gingerly touched the delicate chain and quietly palmed it away. Through his fingers, he sensed that it too had a story to tell… but it was one for another time.

\-----------------------------------------v^v^v^v^v^v^-----------------------------------------

Commander Ren awoke from his sleep several hours later in the throes of a cruel nightmare, his hand still locked tightly around the Imperial datapad. His sleep-addled mind still swirled with the conjured images of starving men and women, their bodies still chained to walls and forever forgotten, begging him to give them the merciful release of death that he knew would still be a long time in coming, their rot-browned, decaying hands grasping at his neck and tearing his pale skin open in desperation with skeletal fingertips and nails, the maddening cries of the damned echoing in his ears… 

The tall young man slowly rose to his feet and clutched his head in a haze of disorienting pain. The forgotten dead in the dark research lab had been the ones who had called to him the first time he had visited the dilapidated building, aside from the voice of the woman who had called him to her for help. Their minds had all long since driven into unspeakable madness over the years of decay. They had cursed and threatened him, and made him see the building explode when it had not… he now realized that they had made him see and hear these things in an effort to warn him away. 

The ghosts of the dead had tried to _save_ him from their fate.

At the time, he did not understand why… but after several hours of studying the once-lost information that resided in the ancient datapad, he now knew. 

_They had all been Force-sensitive._

‘Different’, as she had called them… _Different, like herself_. An icy chill pounded through the Commander’s veins.

Somehow, she had survived what the others had not; be it by chance, genetic fluke, or by the machinations of the researchers themselves, they had succeeded with her. Well, mostly anyways. According to the data, her mind was left a twisted mess that had been crudely hammered together from her original brain and ‘enhanced’ with infusions of blood from the Emperor himself. They had pumped his rich blood through her brain and suppressed her own self with torture and various pharmaceutical chemicals, allowing his will to take hold within, like dark seeds planted in a fertile field. 

She was not a clone, or a reanimated corpse, but something far more sinister… _a slave of the mind_. 

Kylo hoisted himself up to his full height and cracked his long, muscular back in a slightly soothing movement. His emotional state lay strewn about in tatters, like the aftermath of some terrible war. He sensed a growing darkness on the ship, and felt a vague whisper of a request that he should go check up on her. 

He chewed his lower lip as he placed his heavy black and steel helmet atop his head. Something seemed… off, and she was very quietly calling to him. He bunched his lips up with task and purpose; he would tell her all that he had found so far on the datapad. Perhaps something that he found might help her in dealing with the burden of being the person who would soon be bringing the dead back to life, whether she wanted to or not. 

When he reached the door to his quarters, the darkness he had sensed from within had grown exponentially. He could nearly see it flickering in the air like twisted coils of black smoke, the Dark side of the Force flowed easily through the durasteel walls and lapped hot at his legs and face like invisible flames. Kylo brushed aside the penetrating dark energies and keyed in his private entry code, but before he could hit ‘enter’, the door smoothly slid open with no resistance. He cautiously stepped in, the fine hairs at the nape of his neck standing on end under his helmet.

The woman stood in the center of the room, her back facing the Commander as he entered. The door slid silently closed, sealing him into his quarters with a claustrophobic feeling. He could hear her soft breathing, even several meters away. Her entire demeanor felt terrifyingly different from before. _Hostile. Predatory_. 

The slender fingers of both her hands stretched down with the audible pop-snap of tendons, and then folded back into loose fists that hung just above the silvery plated hilts of the Emperor’s twin lightsabers. “Why do you persist in believing a lie?” came her voice at last, distant and void of emotion. 

Kylo swallowed a large knot in his throat. “What lie do you sense from me?” The woman continued to stare out at the black star field outside the large transparisteel window at the rear of the room, her dark aura rippling throughout the enclosed space.

“The lie that you tell yourself when you believe that you can help me. I am beyond the help of one who is so beneath me in power.”

Kylo chafed slightly at her words, which stung his still-strong sense of pride. “I will admit that you are indeed more powerful than myself with the Force, however I still sense that you require my assistance… and that you called me here.”

With a slow, ominous gesture, the woman turned around to face Kylo Ren at last. Her raptorial eyes grew greedy and pale, their formerly rich color now tinged with an unnatural hint of gold around the edges. The very sight of them froze the blood in the young man’s veins. 

“Now… that indeed would be correct.” She gestured towards the bed with a wide, inviting sweep of her right arm. “Sit. And remove that damnable helmet.” The woman released a small, hollow laugh as she sneered at the young Knight. “Actually... from now on, I order you to remove that helmet in my presence at all times when we are in private.” 

Kylo pursed his lips in confusion as the faintest hint of defiance and anger sparked within him. “You… _order_ me?”

The piercing gold-toned eyes cut through his prideful façade like a razor blade. “Of course. You will serve my every command, just as your grandfather once did.”

The young man obediently walked over to the bed, sat, and removed his helmet with a hiss. He peered up at her as he sat the heavy steel object on his silver nightstand, still baffled by her new insistence that he remove his mask and obey her. “May I ask… why do you ask that I remove my helmet around you?” 

With a slow, calculating stride, the woman approached the seated Knight and stopped before him at eye level. She raised her right hand to his exposed, pale chin and jaws and gently turned his head from side, as if examining him closely for flaws. Those bone-chilling, hawkish orbs burned down and through Kylo’s deep brown eyes, which grew wider with horror as she spoke. “I wish to see the fear in your eyes, after I break you.” 

Kylo snatched his head back from her hand in revulsion. The defiant spark ignited fiercely in his belly at her words. “ _Break_ me? I will not be talked to in such a way, no matter what happened to you or what blood pumps through your veins.”

A malign grin cracked across her beautiful face, exposing her pointed white canine teeth as she seductively licked her reddened lips. The chilled fingertips of her right hand ghosted over the warm curves of his plush pink mouth for a moment, before seizing him by the jaw and forcing him to look her deep in the eyes. 

“You will. You… _will_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH SHIZZZZ KYLO YOU MISBEHAVING DOLT, WHAT DO?! 
> 
> PS: Kylo needs to be taught a nasty little lesson here, which has resulted in me typing over 6,500 words in a single day. Enjoy *two* chapters for the price of one admission today, MWAHAHAHA!!


	8. Slave Drive Connection Established

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, this chapter gets pretty NSFW/S&M/torture-Y/non-con-Y from here, if you aren't into that then just skip this chapter and assume they did the nasty. 3,500+ words of torture and smuttage await to offend your virginal sensibilities from here on out. Warned, ye be.

The young, hot-headed Master of the Knights of Ren had had just about enough of this garbage; her insistence that he _serve_ and _obey_ her was bad enough, however her declaration that she would ‘ _break him_ ’ had been a bridge too far for him to accept. He rose to his feet, which with her standing so closely to him and refusing to step back, left her nose mere centimeters from his chest. 

Kylo towered over the woman, trying his best to summon up an imposing posture and aura with which to intimidate her into backing down. It wasn’t working… and he _knew_ it. Fear crept up from the floor through his long leather boots, freezing his calves into place. It was taking a great deal of his powers just to remain standing in the presence of such roiling dark energy and not crumple up in its wake.

The small woman sneered cruelly and firmly placed her right hand against his abdomen. “ _You should have remained seated_...” 

As the words left her mouth, a pulse of dark energy fired itself directly into the center mass of Kylo’s body, throwing him up and over the bed and onto the floor opposite where she stood. The Knight gathered himself up and stared at her with shocked eyes, his right hand cradling his deeply bruising torso and large feet pressed flat against the floor. With a quick outward flick of her right hand, Kylo was suddenly slammed hard against the back wall, knocking the breath out of his lungs. Iridescent purple stars formed and danced before his eyes as he gasped for air.

The sadistic woman raised her left hand, and the crumpled dark form of Kylo Ren rose upwards, helpless as a child’s doll suspended by braided steel wire. She pulled him through the air to rest upright on his knees in the center of his own bed. Unspeakable terrors filled his mind as he struggled to gain his breath once more.

With a soft swish of clothing, the woman paced the square edges of the black bed, her cold, glittering eyes fixed carnivorously on the helpless young man as she licked her lips. She paused at the center of the foot of the bed, pointed her fingers skyward, his long, muscular arms extended outwards in mid-air, bound by invisible restraints like a sacrifice at an altar. Her fingers pinched the air playfully; Kylo choked on nothing as another Force binding locked itself around his thick throat, drawing his head slightly upwards with a harsh tug. 

Dizzy with pain and flushed with fear, Kylo suddenly became aware of a new source of light in the room as she ignited her twin sabers with a _hisss-snap!_. The elegantly designed, ruby red swords that he had once looked at in awe, now seemed terrifyingly venomous and sinister in her hands.

With a soft, soundless movement of feather light feet, the woman leapt up to the bed and aimed the Emperor’s lightsabers at his chest, their fiery beams crossed over each other and humming ominously at his center. Her voice echoed in the dim room, the sabers casting an evil underlit effect to her grinning jaws. “ _I have wanted to see you like this for some time now_.” 

Kylo swallowed and closed his eyes, awaiting his end…

Seven quick strokes of lightly burning heat and pain crossed his body at calculated points, followed by the unmistakable sound of tearing fabrics. The cold embrace of death became simply the cold touch of the air in the room, its chill touching his newly exposed warm skin. Kylo’s eyes snapped open – with a surgeon’s precision, she had cut his clothing and boots off and thrown their tattered shreds across the room in various random locations. 

His shamed, fearful eyes lowered to meet hers, before travelling farther down his body… _Naked_. He was entirely naked.

The long tendons in the young man’s neck bobbed once as he choked back a hard knot in his throat that was caused by his invisible neck restraint pressing into his esophagus. A faintly purple bruise started to form across his pale, smooth stomach where her hand had blasted him across the room with her unseen power. Cold sweat began to form on his brow, the silvery trails of ice cold water ran in slender rivulets down his face and across the masculine curves of his collarbones and broad chest. Razor thin red burns criss-crossed his porcelain skin where the tips of her lightsabers had grazed his flesh.

Kylo tipped his head up towards his captor once more, his dark brown eyes pleading and half-wild with fear.

The small woman smiled wickedly as she placed her hands on either side of his face. “Now this is more like it.” Her fingers danced across his arched cheekbones and through his thick mane of soft black hair, taking a moment to lean in and deeply inhale the salty scent of his sweat and the oils of his skin from behind his left ear. Her voice was seductive and smooth, the whispered burn of acid and warm lips ghosted along his tender skin. “You… will call me _master_ by the time I am through with you.” 

The young Knight’s body trembled fearfully as she traced the region of skin behind his ears and between his neck and hairline with her hot, warm tongue. Gooseflesh danced its way down his arms and chest at the tender, sensual movement of saliva and teeth across his sensitive skin. An unsolicited exhalation of warm air left his lips in a soft puff, followed up by the dull burn of his bruised abdomen.

The slightly pleasurable sound did not go unnoticed by the sharp ears and eyes of the woman. “So… it would appear that you do like this after all. Perhaps I should try a different method.”

The woman sat back on her delicately folded knees to examine the helpless young man’s handsome body in its entirety, her fingers held playfully to her red lips in contemplation. Suddenly one her hands sprung open and snatched his head up by his long, black hair while she slapped him very hard across his left cheek with the other, leaving a bright mark in response.

Kylo’s dark eyes burned with shock and terror once more, searching her face for any discernable reason she might have chosen to hit him and yank his hair after being so oddly tender with him before. 

With no further explanation, she pushed herself forward against his upright, naked body and scraped her nails across his warm skin. After scratching a few lines across his broad chest, without warning she dug her pointed fingernails into the smooth skin and muscles of his chest. Kylo screamed out in pain as she bound deep into his flesh like a demented hawk. A moment later, she released him – thin trails of his bright red blood oozed from all ten of his wounds and ran down his alabaster skin. His breathing pace increased from the fresh pain.

The woman cocked her head with curiosity. “Mynock got your tongue? Where is that little spark of defiance now? Hm?” She trailed her fingers down one of the lines of blood that ran down his chest, gathered up a drop or two, and placed her fingers inside her mouth, taking care to lick the hot-iron taste from her skin. 

Kylo’s terror slipped into a mix of revulsion and piquing interest at the sight of her tongue curling seductively around her pointed fingers, the silvery glints of saliva mixing with his crimson blood as she licked it away. An unwanted heat began to build in his lower body that he tried desperately to ignore; as much as he tried to wish it away, it only seemed to grow hotter. 

Her pale-yellow tinged eyes flicked up to his face, and then back down to his lower half as she noticed something that had changed. Her expression suddenly darkened as she noticed his growing, half-hard erection. A hand flicked out and snatched roughly at his dark pink length and gripped it with an iron hand, which caused him to cry out with fright and pain. Her right hand grabbed his handsome face and forced him to look her deep in the eyes again. “I hit you, and I hurt you, and _this_ is what you reward me with?” She tugged roughly against his member, causing him to cry out again. “You can do better than this sad excuse.”

Tears built in his eyes from the pain, the hot saline liquid running down his chiseled cheeks, thickly corded neck, and into his partially open mouth. He hated the feeling of being held so powerless with all of his being, and he hated the humiliation and the torture, but somehow, as much as he hated admitting to it… he _liked_ it. A lot... _All of it_. His muscles pumped hard and firm with adrenaline, the claw like scrape of her fingers raked across his naked body, the fact that he could do nothing but wait helplessly for her to make her next move. It thrilled and excited him in a way he could have never before imagined. He rolled his head luxuriantly and exhaled, feeling the sensations of his long, sweat tamped black hair pressing into and pulling sticky away from his smooth shoulders as he went. 

The woman sat up again on her knees and placed her hands against his blood-flecked chest. Her head cocked fractionally as she admired the curves of his masculine throat. “What a most interesting little thing you are.” 

Kylo let his head fall back forward with an evil glint in his eyes that he hadn’t had before, his tear-stained face now hanging directly in front of hers. He exhaled hard and angrily as he blew a clinging piece of hair from his wet, plush pink lips. A soft grunt rumbled out of his chest he adjusted his kneeling position to better accommodate his large and now fully hardened erection.

The woman’s eyes flicked downwards to examine his manhood, and then back up to his face, which had broken wide with a mischievous grin. “That… is a _much_ better performance.” she nodded approvingly. “I will reward you for that.”

With a pop, she reached to her chest and tore the black First Order shirt from her curved body, exposing her black bra. Her hands quickly slipped behind her back, fingers toying with the clasps for a teasingly long moment before releasing her breasts to the cool air. She flipped her hair from the front to the back, and allowed him to view her delicate pink nipples and feminine curves unimpeded. 

Kylo’s eyes grew dark and hungry at the sight of her soft, bouncing breasts; so close and yet frustratingly completely inaccessible. A feeling of hot intoxication burned in his pounding veins, his previous inhibitions growing weaker and dimmer by the moment. The young Knight’s breath quickened as he strained lightly against his bindings towards her. 

The woman pursed her plump pink lips as she touched her silken breasts, her eyes flicked up to meet the wide eyed, lust-soaked face of the handsome man for a brief moment. “You don’t deserve to touch me this way. You wouldn’t know what to do even if I permitted you to do so. You are too… _innocent_. Let me teach you the way things are now.” Her eyes flared with cruelty as she leaned back and struck him across the face again. Red blood spattered his chest from a small split in his lower lip. 

The bare chested woman stood tall on the bed before walking around the kneeling young man, and after a moment to consider her options, bent down and bit him hard on his smooth left ass cheek. Kylo shrieked in surprise and pain just before she pressed her heel into the center of his well-muscled back. She forced him downwards, straining his arms tightly up against his invisible bindings. “ _Know your place_!” she shouted over hatefully curled lips. 

Kylo grunted loudly, the iron-taste of his own blood on his tongue, the taut pressure of the Force drawing the tendons of his arms back nearly to the breaking point, her sharp heel jammed into his back… it all simply _electrified_ and _teased_ his lust and desire. His entire body pulsed hard with crackling energy as his breathing became rough and primal. The throbbing length between his legs ached with tender pain, craving and desperate for any attention.

The cruel woman felt his shift in attitude and smiled with malice as she tugged on the invisible bindings around his throat, cinching off his air supply for a few terrible moments until he involuntarily began to struggle from deprivation.

As soon as she released her choke hold, Kylo screamed out through his hot tears. “ _LET ME GO_!!”

With a snicker, the woman slowly walked to the foot of the bed again, and squatted in front of the strongly breathing young Knight. “Let you go? Now, _why_ should I do a thing like that?” her voice rolled coyly off of her venomous tongue.

The powerful man suddenly strained hard against his bindings, the tendons of his toes raised like tented peaks under his skin as he pushed down into the bed. He lowered his head with a cascade of black locks, before swinging his face up towards hers. His eyes were pinned with rage and adrenaline, drying red blood spattered across his porcelain skin and dark beauty marks, ivory teeth glinting in the silvery light. “ _So I can fuck the absolute shit out of you, you hateful fucking bitch._ ” he hissed through heavily panted breaths. 

A dark smile broke across her face. “Oh, come now. Is that any way to speak to your master?” She snatched her iron grip out to his throat, driving her nails deep into his skin and drawing blood. Her wet pink lips lingered right above his spittle flecked, bloodied mouth, her soft, quivering lips threatening to press themselves into his… and then suddenly pulling back. “No, no… that’s not what you need.” 

She held his head up and towards the ceiling for several long moments with her left hand – _zzzzziiiipppp_! – just before Kylo heard the unmistakable sound of a zipper being pulled down, followed by the slick sound of pants sliding down smooth skin. Suddenly, her hand released his throat.

His starving eyes traveled down… 

She now stood before him, horrifyingly, deliciously real… and as naked as he was. The dim light in the room danced and reflected off of her shining skin like glittering diamonds under a waning moon.

At the exquisite, intoxicating sight, Kylo suddenly lunged against his restraints, drawing his skin back at several points against nothing at all as he threw himself towards the sensuously curved body of the woman; any fears that the young Force-user had once harbored had now exchanged for blind animal lust and furious rage. He had to possess her, or let her have him… either way, his need had grown from a barely spoken please to an all-consuming inferno, and he had to have release by her soon. 

The woman calmly reached down to his rock-hard length, which had grown nearly purple from desperation and denial. A spot of clear liquid oozed from the tip, which she allowed to bead up and collect upon on her fingertips. With a confident smile, she smeared the liquid across her nipples, rolling the pink ends upwards and bathing them gently in his fluids. 

The young man whimpered softly at the delectable sight as the bitter flavor of denial built on his tongue. Her golden-toned eyes swept back up to his as she traced a single finger along the underside of his manhood, causing him to tense up and moan softly. “You learn quickly. Don’t fight it… I will give you all that you deserve.”

Her iron grip locked around his shaft, squeezing it slightly. “Say it. Say what I want to hear.”

Kylo’s dark eyes fluttered as he chewed his soft, injured bottom lip. He was desperate now, his ache had built up to the back of his skull and was threatening to knock him unconscious soon unless he could achieve orgasm and release the hot pressure inside himself. “ **Please** … I have to have this…” he whispered out.

The woman stroked him a single time, her strength evident from even the smallest motion. “ _ **Please**_? Oh no, no…“ She squeezed his length excruciatingly hard, her thumb drilled down into the sensitive tip with cruelty.

Kylo screamed in pain as tears uncontrollably burst streaming from his eyes. She had known exactly where to apply pressure and hurt him to receive that strong of a reaction from him. 

She shouted directly into his handsome, sobbing face, teeth bared and vicious. “WHO OWNS YOU!?”

The young man sniffed in throbbing pain. “ _You_ do…“ he wept. 

The woman squeezed him again, still sharply but not painfully as before, eliciting another loudly wailed scream. “And who am I to you?” 

His long black hair was drenched and dripping with sweat that pittered all over the bed as he breathed. “ _You… are my master_.” he whispered in a defeated, injured tone.

A greedy, toothy grin broke across the woman’s red lips and she brought her hands up and clapped three times. “VERY good. Very, _very_ good.” She looked over the beaten, bruised, and bloodied form of Kylo Ren, his head hung low and shrouded in his soaking wet, soft raven-black locks, his spirit broken and resigned to whatever fate she had in store for him. 

She slipped a tender finger under his chin and lifted his head up and backwards to meet her aquiline, penetrating gaze, while simultaneously relaxing her hold on him with the Force in order to lay him flat on his back on the bed. Even with his invisible restraints loosened, Kylo no longer fought against her, and quietly allowed her to arrange his body in whatever manner she wished. Wordlessly, she positioned her entrance directly above his painful, purple-red erection.

Kylo weakly lifted his head to meet her eyes with a confused expression. 

“You have earned your reward. Shhh.” She lowered herself down around his shaft, allowing for him to adjust and fill her from inside.

His deep, hurting eyes went wide with a mix of several emotions before allowing himself to simply _feel_ the moment… a moment that would be his very first.

The sinister woman stroked his pale abdomen gently, her previous cruelty seemingly lost as she pushed her body against his and ground down around his shaft in a strong, pulsing rhythm. 

The young Commander swallowed the fading taste of his own blood once more and closed his eyes to take in the now soothing bliss of her body. The heat within his belly built stronger, his muscles tensing, thick length twitching inside her warm, wet weight that pressed down from above, his hands reached to her silken thighs – it was at that moment that the broken young man suddenly realized that she had entirely released him from his restraints… he was free once more. 

At the realization of this, Kylo gripped her thighs strongly and pushed his hips upward and into hers, causing her to moan slightly. Her sparkling, golden-toned eyes flicked down to his dark and lustful orbs, his warm pink lips spread wide with a broad smile as he began to thrust up into her and more freely enjoy the sexual experience. 

A dismissive smirk crossed her face before she broke into a toothy smile – and then she threw her head back and screwed her eyes shut as she began reaching her breathtaking climax atop the young Knight’s body. 

Kylo flinched abruptly; he had felt her clench down hard around his manhood just as a pair of lamps on the other side of the room exploded into fragments. Suddenly the shuddering, convulsive feeling of her orgasm reached him through the emotional bond that she had established with him during her earlier test… the world flared white for a moment as he felt himself hit his heaving, spurting release deep inside her.

With a deep gasp, Kylo realized that he could see and feel the hot, pulsing blood within her veins, the heavy weight of her head that was thrown back in ecstasy, the muscles of her mouth moving involuntarily in pleasure… entirely through her point of view. The young man could feel her reach her climax against his body… and with a weirdly detached moment of clarity, he realized that she was currently feeling the exact same thing, but from his side. 

Her eyes snapped wide open as she simultaneously came to the same conclusion that Kylo had; she could feel the ache of his bruised abdomen every time she pushed into him, the wetness from their shared experience smeared against his loins, the painful ghosts of where she had slapped him… she now felt these as if these sensations were her own. 

What had once been a one way line of communications from her to him, had abruptly opened up wide on both ends; a free-flowing pathway had become permanently set between the young man and young woman.

As the pair stilled their movements, the beautiful, terrifying, woman’s sharp, curious eyes peeked down at the handsome young man below her; he was gazing up at her with soft, gentle eyes of dark velvet. His large hand reached up to her face, and she allowed him to stroke her tender, flushed cheeks. For a moment, she saw something considerably deeper than physical lust burning within those deep eyes… and she knew that he had seen the same thing in hers. 

A warm, genuine smile broke across her face as she ran her hands across his smooth, sweat-stained skin, for the very first time that she could remember.

And perhaps it was also the last time that she ever would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ::smokes a death stick in sizzling pleasure:: Ahhh. _'Good boy' indeed._


	9. Network Online, Connection Stable

Sun-kissed hands ran through long, lustrous locks as the sound of a hot summer breeze rippled past. The sweet song of laughter filled the air, dotting the aural landscape with little speckles of human happiness that barely rose over the collective din of nature. Puffy white clouds set in endless azure skies trundled their slow march above the sparkling riverside. Pink blossoms on the ground, glittering white sand. _‘I can still taste the salt on the air… This was… my home.’_ The hiss of delicate green leaves swaying on slender branches, the odor of fresh grass, and the melody of small blue birds on the wing. 

_**Innocence.** _

_‘I never saw it again… and I don’t think I would recognize it even if I saw it again today.”_

Abruptly, fire and flame. Terror. Unspeakable horrors raining down from the heavens… Forests vaporized into charcoal, water evaporated into non-existence. Blood, bodies, ashes. Destruction. _‘There was… no chance to win… We were damned… long before the fight had even started.’_ A promise made – take me, spare the others. My life for theirs. I would save them with my love... a sacrifice.

**_Betrayal._ **

_‘They killed them all anyways as soon as they took me away. I… was their only hope. And they betrayed us all.’_

With the bone-crushingly hard slam of flesh thrown against metal, an unseen source hurled the terrified young woman against a steel wall, her tear-stained eyes open wide with horror. “You tried to give that man a portion of your rations. Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?”

Her quivering lips drew up tight as tears began to fall, hands held out imploringly. “Please, I’m so sorry… He was dying, I-I-I had to help him! Look I-I-I’ll even make it up, h-h-h-ere… look, I won’t fight this tim-“

A black gloved hand lashed out and struck her hard enough across the face to spin her down to one knee. Brilliant crimson spattered the right side of her face from her busted lip, a long spatter stretched across the wall and her neck like a starburst. The same dark hand snatched her throat, squeezing the woman’s delicate neck until she began to change color and struggle from the pressure. 

_‘I tried my best to fight them… It was… not good enough. I escaped… but was recaptured… and punished.’_ Wide, terrified eyes peered up, searching vainly for any sign of mercy from above; but as a heated spike of metal slowly approached her face, the end burning white-hot and smoldering, she knew that there would be none coming. Not in this lifetime, and very likely there would be none to come in the next, either.

**_Darkness._ **

Heavy silver chains bound her wrists as she hung suspended from the ceiling. _‘I hung there for so many days… no food. Forgot… even… what it tasted like.’_ Clear tubes ran from the center of each wrist, their contents a thick mix of blood, straw-colored plasma, and chemical decoagulation agents. A massive steel collar was bound to her neck, and it in turn was bound to yet even more blinking mechanical devices that beeped maddeningly in the dimly lit room. Her mouth felt parched and dry like age-bleached bones, the whipped skin of her back drawn tight and unhealed… Cold. Naked. _Broken._

_‘Let me die… I don’t… want this life. Take me - I will do anything, just make it stop...’_

**_Death._ **

The cold embrace of death… No, _not_ death. Worse than that… _Life-in-death_. 

Gasping for air, then pushed back under the choking pink fluid by powerful mechanical hands a moment later. The soulless voices of droids chattering incoherently above; the foul automatons incapable of mercy, only of mindless, programmed duty. Pulled above the water, slammed back down below. No escape. Burning inside … _pain_. Help!! _‘Can’t breathe, can’t see… PLEASE STOP! I CAN’T TAKE THIS… NOOOOO!! HELP ME!!’_ Furious panic… suddenly stilled. Darkness once more.

**_Silence._ **

Why am I still here? I somehow… _I still live_. No light. So cold. Lonely. Such emptiness… Hollow. Left behind… _Forgotten_.

**_An awakening..._ **

A flicker of light in the endless night; a mind that stood different from the rest. I can… feel _**you**. ‘Come… help… me.’_ A voice responded, from deep within… yet it was not from the one who I had called out to in the darkness. 

**_‘Arise, my Dark Phoenix… and serve your master once more.’_ **

Kylo Ren sat upright, allowing the mop of shimmering black hair atop the young man’s handsome, strongly angled face to fall between the large fingers of his hands, as he gingerly rubbed his still-tender forehead. He shuddered involuntarily at the lingering afterimages from the nightmare, which had apparently bled over from the small woman who lay curled into a sleeping ball beside him. He had seen her caught in the throes of nightmare sleep once before, however he had no idea that her nightmares were actually horrifying, twisted pieces drawn from her deepest memories, until just now.

The Force bond that had now been firmly established between the two now allowed him to see clearly what had previously been an impenetrable black void, and what he had found on the other side of that dark gulf in her mind while she slept had been even more horrible than he could have ever imagined. Her skin had been whipped, her delicate bones broken, her body starved and beaten into submission… she had even been drowned… on _multiple_ occasions. And every time she slept, her nightmare memories returned to torment her anew. For her, her very existence was a constantly renewing reminder of the unconscionable things that had been inflicted upon her, so many years ago. 

But still, Kylo wondered about her original self, the woman who lived her life long before he was ever conceived. That nameless woman remained a mystery, in part because the she herself could not remember who she once was. The innocent, sun-drenched playful youth that she had once been before she was mutilated and transformed into Palpatine’s resurrection puppet... did any part of her still exist? Did she still yearn to live free as she once did, or was the bond between herself and her new ‘master’ too strong? Was she and the Emperor one in the same now? Was it Kylo’s responsibility to help her as she wished, no matter which path she chose to follow?

His dark eyes peered back over his broad, pale shoulder to the spot where she still lay, her body locked in a dreamless, yet restorative sleep. At the moment, she was serene, calm, and still. And so impossibly… _beautiful_. A warmth crept over his pink cheeks at the sight of her nude, curved form rolled into his black silken sheets. Her hair flowed out from her head across the plush pillow like an unexpected cascade of brilliant color, shimmering and ethereal in the half-light of the cool, dimly lit room. Her hands lay askew, one open near her forehead – and still faintly flecked with his red blood – and the other was tucked neatly away at her side, a wad of sheeting held loosely in its finely sculpted grasp. The silken skin of her legs and dainty toes shone out from little twists and folds of the sheets, playfully exposing her exquisite form.

He knew he had felt something earlier stirring for her within his chest… in fact, the awakening had occurred on two different occasions for him. The first time had been when he had first watched the powerful, seemingly invincible woman standing before him with hot tears streaming down her face, when she had revealed what had and was happening to her down in the bowels of the dilapidated Imperial research facility. The second had been when they had made love – although it had been a wildly animalistic and quite painful affair, of which he had not been _entirely_ consenting to until partway through the act itself – for the first time. He was quite sure that it had not been entirely 'just a physical thing' between them by the very end. 

Shortly after getting to know her a bit more, Kylo had begun to feel strongly for her, in secret... even from himself. His quietly brewing feelings for her had been a confusing mix of the desire to both simultaneously possess and protect her, and yet also to obey and acquiesce to her demands. The oddly caring, jealous, and yet submissive aspects to his side of their budding relationship had not been something that he had ever felt the need to have for anyone else. 

But was it all just a trick, some small part of the Emperor beginning to manifest himself in her... Was this all really just him trying to control a powerful Force-using ally? Was he molding Kylo Ren into becoming a new Darth Vader to have at his side? No, it was real, he had felt it and was certain... But the concept held valid concerns given who else was involved.

The Emperor Palpatine had indeed been notorious for inspiring the fiercest of loyalties among his men... But the more he thought of it, the more it didn't feel right; at best it was an imperfect explanation. His earlier and rather childlike adorations - and admittedly, that all had been due to an incorrect hypothesis of his - for her and her perceived past glories with the Empire, had not been entirely related to his admiration of his grandfather and of the Emperor that he served. There had definitely been _another_ reason for his eagerness to follow her.

The young man had revered her in part because she had been the only person he had ever known who could so easily see him; the raw, tormented, fragile human man within the mask who called himself Kylo Ren. Was the part of her that liked to look at the real, broken man within the masked monster some small piece of her true, original self shining through the haze and darkness?

Kylo had simply never encountered another person who could view all of his heavily guarded thoughts and secrets, let alone with the impossible ease that she could. She could also physically overpower him with the Force… he had also never seen anyone so powerful in such ways before, and it had attracted the dark Force user’s desires for strength and power like a moth to a flame. A being as strong as her did not have any reason to fear his abilities with the Force, likewise she did not hate him for what he had done or possibly could do, because she was capable of doing the same, but on a far grander and more destructive scale. 

The novel concept that there was someone in all of existence, who was absolutely beyond his control, who always knew his innermost thoughts and fears, and who accepted him outright for who and what he was, was a completely unexpected and marvelous thing to happen to the man called Kylo Ren. The impossible odds of such a person existing at all, and then later at some point chancing to cross paths with him, made him desire to keep her with him at all costs since he was not likely to ever again find another such person in all the galaxy. 

This burning need to possess, this intensely strong sensation of wanting her to forever stay with him out of the fear of once again being left all alone in the universe, with no one ever to perfectly fill the gap that would be left by her absence... It suddenly struck him. This need, this powerful emotion, he knew it from the adventure and story books and legends that he read as a child... and he knew what its name was.

He chewed his lip pensively, his mind wrapped around a few heavy lines of thought. The true name of his current demon was not one that he wanted to think of, let alone speak aloud, for fear it would blossom into a truth. However, as he watched her soundly sleeping in the soft, silvery light, and felt her soothing presence flowing in and through his mind, both exciting and electrifying him as the energy coursed through their connection… he knew that it already had. 

That emotion… was _love_. 

And with a burst of confirming energy that surged two ways through their bond just as powerfully as any spoken word, he now knew that she also felt the same way about him.

A startling buzzing alarm began sounding out from a random corner of the darkened bedroom, making Kylo flinch out of surprise and knocking him out of his fledgling lovestruck, post-coital reveries. The tall Knight launched himself from the bed, not taking care to cover his nakedness as he searched in the direction of the sound. After a few fruitless moments of trying to pinpoint the source with his ears, his eyes caught a dim light source that was barely visible from above. It was his First Order communicator, still tucked away in a pants pocket – a pants pocket from the pants that the woman had sliced through with a lightsaber and thrown across the room in their earlier ‘escapades’, he noted with a quirky grin.

As he answered the com unit, the woman on the black-silk bed awoke and cocked her head curiously at the sight of the completely naked young Knight squatting in a random corner of the room, reading a pale blue com device and nodding to whoever was on the other end. Her lips curled up in amusement at the sight of his crouched posture, his pale, bare ass and long alabaster arms dangling in an amusingly primitive and almost simian fashion. Kylo picked up on the imagery of his squatting pose and her emotional response, and smirked a bit at himself.

“Uh-huh. How many more? I thought you had assigned a unit to protect the remaining researchers and assigned a search party to finish the area sca-… Never mind. I will depart immed-… Uh-“ Kylo trailed off, remembering his current nude form and the fact that all of his clothes had been destroyed, meaning he would have to secure new ones from the stockroom down the hall. “Give me a few moments. I will depart as soon as I am able to. Oh, you will be coming along as well? That is alright. Have the technicians prepare my shuttle in the meantime, I will meet you at the docking bay shortly. Commander Ren out.” 

The woman cocked her head – she already knew what had been seen and said. “I assume that General Hux knows that we are both going?”

Kylo shook his head no. “No, I haven’t had time to brief him appropriately about your rather _unusual_ relation to the First Order, the Galactic Empire, and to myself.”

Her legs kicked out from under the bedsheets as she rose to her feet with a tendon-popping, luxurious stretch. “This outing could pose an interesting opportunity for me to introduce myself to the good General.” 

The young Knight drew up his brows in a curious manner, before breaking into a cruel grin. “You aren’t planning on throwing him into a tray of medical instruments, are you?”

Topping her stretch off with a great yawn and a quick sideways toss of her long, tousled hair, the woman flicked her golden-toned eyes back over to Kylo. “No, I am not…” 

Kylo grimaced when he suddenly picked up on her true intentions.

She shrugged playfully in response. “Well… maybe _just a little_. But only just enough to secure his respect and loyalty to myself, the Galactic Empire, and to the Emperor Palpatine.” 

Kylo pushed his black locks from his mischievous dark brown eyes as he stood tall again to face her. “I will advise you that Hux has a rather large problem with authority, especially authority that has been granted by the Force and enforced at the tip of a lightsaber. Quite simply put, he prefers to dictate the rules of the game himself.” 

Her hawkish, yellow-flecked eyes lit up malignly, as she slipped her sleek black pants back on and clipped the Emperor's shining lightsabers to the thick belt at her hips. “Then he must learn that we are playing an entirely _new_ game.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor, poor Hux. He's got no idea what's about to hit him with a faceful of sit the f*ck down and shut the f*ck up. ;)


	10. Uploading Launch Sequence Data

Fifteen minutes after Kylo Ren had ended his communication with General Hux, the tall, black clad Force-user strode into the hollow gray halls of the _Finalizer_ , the silver-steel of his mask glinting ominously in the softly diffused overhead lighting. Kylo stopped a short distance away from the door to his room before turning back, his right hand opened invitingly forward and his head tipped slightly downwards in an antiquated, yet nonetheless rather gentlemanly gesture.

Out from behind him stepped a vision in raven-black fabric, her long shimmering hair floating behind her like an ethereal shroud of brilliant color in an otherwise monochromatic world. She wore one of Kylo’s tattered black cloaks around her slender neck and a flowing, silken ebony cape that was typically slated for use by the officers of the First Order. The evil silvery phrik and electrum clad lightsaber hilts of the Emperor Palpatine danced at her hips as she passed Kylo with a quick grin of acknowledgement. 

With nary an audible word spoken between them, a full conversation was going on silently across the mysterious bond between the two Force-users, eliciting little sparks of amusement and other plans between the ominous-looking pair. With the heavy stomps of Kylo’s boots and the quick, light click-clack of hers, they began their march towards the docking bay and Kylo’s Command Shuttle.

As they entered the massive hangar of the docking bay, a small contingent of command and communications officers flittered around the sharp red-haired form of General Brendol Hux, who was barking commands and signing various orders on shining datapads. The hairs on his pale freckled neck stood tall just as his ears caught the distinct sounds of Kylo’s heavy footfalls, which caused him to turn round. His icy blue eyes launched daggers as he saw not the usual one, but two black clad forms approaching him with the same aura that he had come to associate with the Dark Side of the Force hovering about them.

The General drew himself in fury. “Commander Ren! For what reason has it taken fifteen minutes for you to ready yourself? I am a busy man with an actual job to do around this ship, and do NOT appreciate your illogical wasting of my time.” The pale blue eyes flicked furiously towards the woman, who approached the General a half second before Kylo. The ginger General glared down hatefully at the smaller woman. “And just who in the hell is this? Ren, we are on a serious mission today! Leave your _pretty little plaything_ back in your quarters.’ he spoke with an exasperated tone. 

With a wordlessly spoken command, Hux’s eyes were summoned downwards to meet those of the golden-tinged eyes of the woman; he audibly gasped when the terrifyingly inhuman, piercing eyes finally registered to his stunned mind. He stammered a moment, then recovered from the surprise with an angry huff, drawing himself back into his previously inflated stature. 

“ _I can assure you that am no one’s plaything, my good General_.” she spoke through clenched, glinting teeth, her carefully timed words simply oozing with spite and venom.

Kylo broke into laughter internally, as he watched her flipping through the various options of what she wanted to do to the ginger man over such a crass assumption of Ren’s relationship to her. Vivid images flowed from her mind of Hux being choked into violet-faced unconsciousness with the Force, her simultaneously beheading every nearby assistant of his in a glorious fountain of blood with a flick of her sabers, and another one of her knotting those wrought-iron hands of hers into his genital region… and then twisting the unfortunate organs until he cried or passed out from pain. It had been the tall Knight’s disarming, silent laughter that had been shared through the Force-bond that had saved the unknowing General from any or all of those combined fates at that moment.

With a smirk towards Kylo, the woman gestured dismissively past General Hux and towards the Command Shuttle. “Come now, we have work to do.” She wordlessly strode past the open-mouthed, disrespected red-head and up into the loading ramp with a quick click-clack of boots and fluttering black silk before disappearing into the dark ship. 

Hux shot a bone-chilling, withering glower at Kylo, who remained externally emotionless and impassive, but who was secretly still snickering to himself inside. “What… who… REN! Just WHO the hell is that?! Does she have ANY idea who I am?!” Hux shouted, his freckled fists balled tightly in quivering rage.

Kylo nodded an affirmative. “She does indeed, General Hux. That woman is an incredibly powerful ally to our cause, and who will aid us greatly in the investigation down below…” The black-clad Commander cocked his head slightly towards the slightly smaller man. “…Assuming that is, that you do not persist in antagonizing her too greatly.” 

If it had been physically possible for General Hux to have shot steam from his ears, he would have blasted his nearby assistants with 2nd and 3rd degree flash burns at that moment. 

“ANTAGONIZE _HER_?!” Hux bellowed in fury, sending his little flock of terrified assistants scattering across the loading bay like frightened sparrows.

Kylo stoically gestured towards the upward loading ramp with a quick nod. “…I wouldn’t, if I were you.” With a flick of his flowing robes, the tall Commander marched up the ramp to be swallowed by the lightless bowels of the predatorial Command Shuttle.

Hux fumed impotently and stomped up the ramp… only to find that the hateful woman was sitting in the seat that he usually occupied, the one beside the pilot’s chair. Kylo slipped into the pilot’s position with a thump, and silently began keying in various launch codes as the ramp ascended with a soft hiss. The General strode up behind the small woman, his anger visibly radiating outwards in the cabin of the ship. 

The seated, black-clad couple never externally expressed any acknowledgement of Hux’s presence nor his anger, as they continued their silent internal conversation.

 _‘Hux is really PISSED off at you.’_ Kylo smirked as he tapped out several commands into his ship's control panel.

 _‘Oh I know he is. I don’t even need the Force to feel that incompetent little troglodyte’s rage at my choice of seating placement.’_ she hissed in retort.

The young Commander sighed. _‘You delight in tormenting him unnecessarily.’_

A single arched eyebrow of hers raised high in response. _‘Of course I do! And it is very necessary, thank you very much. That pompous little creature insulted me. ME!! He simply assumed that I was your whore and not anyone of value because I am female.’_

Kylo drummed his fingers with exasperation. This was not the hill he wanted to die on today. _‘Hux is not particularly misogynistic, but he does believe in a very rigid hierarchy of superior and inferior rankings among people. He simply doesn't know where you rank in the world, and he mistakenly assumed the worst possible scenario on you for some reason. Anyways, for my sake, I ask that you not hurt him too badly if... well, **when** ever you finally decide to teach him a lesson about assumptions and that mouth of his.’_

A hint of amusement rang through from the mind of the seated woman, who flipped her shining hair back with the smug air of imperiousness. _‘You ask quite a lot of me, Kylo... I may just choose to take out my anger on you instead.’ she thought, punctuating her tone with a malicious and slightly lusty smile._

Kylo chuckled internally. _‘I would much prefer that over having to handle all of the administrative tasks that he does on a daily basis. You know that I would be forced to perform them all if you broke him in half... and I'm sure you also have figured out that I abhor menial paper pushing or the mere thought of handling employee disputes.’_

“AHEM!”

The woman shrugged dismissively. _‘Hmmph. You chose your poison. I will remain true to my word, but you must remain true to yours.’_

Kylo continued flipping various control switches as he signed his life away to protect the life of a General whom he could barely tolerate in the first place. _‘Deal.’_

**“AHEM!!”**

Both Force-users heads simultaneously turned towards the fuming General's obvious efforts to be noticed. 

Kylo nonchalantly pointed to a small jump-bench tucked against the wall, slightly behind the co-pilot’s position. “Please be seated, General Hux. I have just been cleared for takeoff.”

The woman glared for a few moments longer, smirked wickedly, and then turned to face back towards the open field of stars outside the cockpit, just as the mighty twin-ion engines roared to life.

General Hux snorted hatefully before flopping onto the bench and clipping his belt buckle over his waist with a growl.

 _‘Imperious asshole.’_ she hissed hatefully into the mind of the young Commander.

 _‘I’m glad you don’t find him particularly appealing. I was worried that you might...’_ Kylo broke off his sentence as he immediately tried to bury a completely unwanted emotional response.

The woman openly turned towards Kylo, her stoic face breaking into a wide, sinister grin. _‘What was **that**? Was that… ‘_

_‘NO... IT WASN’T.’_

The tone of her internal voice lilted upwards in delight. _‘Was that… jealousy?’_

_**‘NO, IT WASN’T**. You merely misinterpreted my-‘_

Laughter rang strong and loud between Kylo's ears, which blushed strongly red in frustration and humiliation beneath his helmet. _‘It WAS so jealousy! You actually thought I might find… THAT… attractive?! Oh my, you DO have a poor opinion of my taste in men.’_ she snickered across their mental bond. 

_‘You chose me after all, that doesn’t vouch particularly well for your tastes.’_ he sourly hissed inside her mind, in a desperate attempt to turn this entire exchange back onto her.

 _‘True, but I do find you rather… unconventionally handsome.’_ she crooned sweetly, momentarily pleased with his annoyance.

Kylo's mood suddenly brightened. Had he heard right? _‘Was that a **compliment**? From you?'_

The woman turned away to stare absently out of the window at the rapidly approaching ground of the planet. _‘If it helps to reduce your jealousy and soothe your fragile ego, then yes... it was.’_

Kylo puffed himself up a bit in satisfaction as he settled back down into the cushy black pilot’s seat. _‘Compliment accepted.’_

Her eyes rolled in her head. _‘Ugh, you are insufferable sometimes. Cute, but absolutely intolerable.’_

A smug puff of air left the soft lips of the young man as he broke into a wide smile under his heavy black and silver mask. _‘Was that ANOTHER one? Wow, I am flattered. Please, keep going.’_

 _‘Go deep-throat a cactus.’_ she hissed, venomously. 

The dying orange sun hung low in the flame-toned sunset of the planet, as the Command Shuttle made its final approach in between the dark green pines near the active research building complex. With a gentle hiss, Kylo powered down the engines and expertly set the gigantic, ungainly craft onto the landing platform.

The woman sat up in her seat, surprised at the gentleness with which the Command Shuttle had been set down. _‘You are actually a rather skilled pilot. Your father taught you well how to handle a ship of this size in such an enclosed space.’_

Kylo huffed angrily, the noise coming out as clipped and distorted by the vocorder in his mask. _‘My father was a worthless man, except for his piloting skills. In that skill alone, he was an expert.’_

A thin stream of disgust and simmering anger bled through from him to her, surprising her slightly. _‘You... despise the poor man. I find that am envious of him.’_

The tall young man openly turned to face her, his helmeted expression completely blank. _‘What? Why?’_

She stared wistfully out of the transparisteel windows and into the beautifully fire-colored world. _‘He bore only the burden of doing whatever he loved. His choices in life, his decisions, his failures, they were all of his own design. He was never forced into doing something he didn’t want to do.’_

Another angry huff came from the young man. _‘If by all that you mean ‘self-centered’, ‘irresponsible’, and ‘shiftless’, then yes, he was indeed that.’_

A serene, wistful expression crossed her face for a moment; she did not bother to press the sensitive issue with him any further.

Hux was already glaring his angry-wet-cat imitation when the two Force-users stepped off of the Command Shuttle. The ginger General said nothing at they approach, but stomped off with obvious disdain towards the largest building with a wide flourish from his crisply pressed greatcoat. Suddenly, his right foot caught on something, sending him staggering forward several steps with arms thrown open wide. The man steadied himself, turned back towards his previous pathway and having noted no significant obstacles there, snapped his head up in the direction of the most likely cause for his trip – the cold, expressionless face of Kylo Ren’s yellow-eyed bitch.

“YOU DID THAT!” he snarled hatefully.

The smaller of the two Dark Force-users continued past him, waving a dismissive hand as she passed his accusatorily pointed index finger. “I did nothing. You should be more careful down here, this planet has no room for the clumsy or careless."

Hux snarled angrily as Kylo wordlessly passed him by as well. 

_‘You so did that.’_ Kylo noted with an internal smirk.

 _‘Oh, of course I did. You heard what he called me..._ Her lips pursed maliciously. _'Bastard’s more surefooted than I gave him credit for, that move should have caused him to eat a mouthful of dust.’_

 _‘I’m sure you’ll get him back for it later.’_ Kylo noted.

Venom dripped from her mind. _‘Or you, for sticking up for him.’_

Kylo gulped back a large knot in his throat as some rather dark imagery crossed over from her to him. _‘If that is what you are planning, count me out.’_

Her suddenly seductive internal voice burned like liquid acid into the mind of the young Commander. _‘Oh, but you have already agreed to it. The fact that Hux is still alive at all is proof of that agreement.’_

 _‘Can you at least not hit me in the stomach this time? My ribs are still sore even after spending all night trying to heal it.’_ Kylo thought as his abdominal muscles squirmed in bitter memory. 

A sinister chuckle came from her in retort. _‘I promise nothing. Well, other than to not kill that obnoxious little troglodyte General of yours.’_

Suddenly, the woman stiffened as she stepped into the large, glassy lobby of the research building.

Kylo felt the abrupt cold touch through her mental connection. _‘What is it?’_

‘I… I’m not sure. You are all in grave danger right now, of that I am certain.’ she mentally spoke, her voice dark and nearly a whisper.

Kylo searched around the room. Two white and grey clad First Order researchers slowly walked up, their faces haggard from obvious lack of sleep. _‘Them?’ he offered._

‘No. Out there.’ The woman turned on her heel and raced full speed out the door, nearly knocking Hux over as she went before screeching to a dusty halt in the center of the entryway as she spoke aloud for the first time since leaving the _Finalizer_. “Do not leave this building under any circumstances until I return.” 

Hux snapped, his face as red as his hair in anger. “Who are you to give us such drastic orders?! You aren’t even a member of the First Order!!”

Unsheathing and igniting her twin red lightsabers with a _hsss-click!_ , the woman marched up to the seething General, her aquiline, gold-toned eyes as set and as serious as a dead man’s. “Listen here you insolent little - _‘PLEASE DON’T!’_ – tumor of a man – _‘STOP THIS, YOU PROMISED ME!!’_ – I am the Dark Phoenix, the last hope of the Galactic Empire, and the vessel of the Emperor Palpatine. I am not giving you an order, you sniveling, mewling, glorified file clerk, I am telling you what you must to do in order to not die here like slaughtered animals today.” 

The fight in the General’s steel-blue eyes faltered at her words and at the terrifying sight of her twin ruby sabers humming ominously in the fading light. “Galactic Empire… _Emperor_?” His nose screwed up as if he was suddenly confused by a bad odor. 

The unblinking pale-yellow tinged eyes of the woman bored into his skull, terrifying the young red-haired man on a primal level. “You have no idea what is out there, hunting you even now...” 

Kylo calmly walked up, his concerns raised high. “Do you?” his slightly nervous voice came through unnaturally deep and ominous, losing any of its wavering as it translated through his vocorder.

The closer proximity of the Knight helped to calm her fury slightly, but it took no edge from her steel-bladed seriousness as she turned towards him. “I am the fourth of the Dark Phoenix Project.” Kylo tipped his helmeted head slightly in confusion. “There were three others who came before me... _And they apparently do not appreciate visitors to their world._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three of them? Oh boy. As a bonus, Hux is now 'Dark Phoenix's' least favorite person, ever.
> 
> Special shout out to Dilatory, for presenting me with the beloved phrase 'go deep-throat a cactus'. That one's for you! ::toasts::


	11. New Target Acquired

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW and Smut, now departing from bays 33-42. Please keep all carry-on bags with you at all times, and inform your Captain if you require assistance loading.

The crisp crunch of fallen pine needles beneath her swift footfalls was the only sound in the forest, aside from the evening chorus of insect life and her steady breathing in the cool, clean air. The vast, slightly-too-big-its-sky blue sister moon had risen above the mighty pines as night had gently enveloped the alien world. However the moon that rose in the sky that night was a darkened new moon, and it cast the world below in its eerie, umbral glow. 

Like a missile with purpose, the fleet-footed Force-user known as Dark Phoenix IV slipped between the trunks of the trees, sensing out into the darkness with her unnatural vision. Just outside of her detectable range, the dark signature of three ominous beings coalesced and parted as if they were becoming one, and then breaking back apart again. 

_‘Can you hear me?’_ came the deep, gentle voice of Kylo Ren over their Force-bond.

 _‘Yes I can.’_ she responded.

His curiosity bled through into her mind. _‘Any luck out there?’ ___

She flicked her sensitive mind out over the vast distance around her, scanning the area once again. _‘I can sense them, but I haven’t encountered them yet. They are still likely a kilometer or two out at the base of the nearest mountain.’_

 _‘Do you need me to help?’_ Kylo offered, hopefully.

She smiled gently in the cool forest air. _‘There is nothing you can do to help out here; you must stay back and protect the people at that research station as best you can. They will likely try to distract me out here and take the station.’_ She could feel an annoyed, slightly insulted sigh come through the bond from Kylo. _‘It’s not an insult of your abilities Kylo, and nor should you take it as one. These creatures are nearly as powerful as I am. And unlike me, they are far less stable and would not hesitate to kill you or anyone else simply for their own amusement.’_

She could feel the young man on the other side sadly begin to resign himself to playing babysitter to the researchers, when he really wanted to be in the middle of the action like how he usually was. His curiosity was piqued about something she had said, however. _‘What did you mean by ‘less stable’? What exactly happened to the other projects?’_

The woman leapt over a fallen log, and expertly rolled over a rocky obstacle before continuing onwards into the darkness. _‘Projects I and III went insane, just like how I almost did, but in spite of their instability they still possess a lot of the same Dark Force power that I do due to their exposure to the Emperor’s blood. However, they aren’t the ones that I’m really concerned with.’_

Kylo frowned. _‘What about Project II?’_

Her mind plucked at the few fragile, tense memories that she retained about the man known as Project II. _‘That’s the one I’m worried about. That one was a mistake to begin with… He wasn't an intentional project like the rest of us. He was a high-ranking Imperial researcher that envied the abilities of those who the Force naturally flowed through. He poisoned his own mind in an attempt to possess the Emperor’s powers, and became an uncontrollable creature of mostly hate and rage. He’s the one who tortured me and starved the others, whom he considered 'weak' or 'expendable'.’_

At the far end of their connection, Kylo’s hatred and protective instincts bristled. _'He must die then. Painfully if you can.’_

 _‘That’s my plan; that cruel bastard has had it coming for some time now.’_ she growled.

Kylo pondered something with curiosity. _‘How is it are you able to recall any of this? I thought you couldn’t remember anything past when you met me?’_

A smirk crossed her lips as she jogged through a small stream filled with flat, cold stones. _‘My memories have been starting to leak back in ever since I established the Force-bond with you; I suspect that your presence somehow is acting as a stabilizing force against the chaos that exists within in my mind.’_

A spark of amusement trailed through the bond from him to her. _‘That is officially the first time that anyone has ever accused me of being a stabilizing force of **anything**.’ _

A laugh flickered from her across the distance between the two Force-users. _‘Well, whatever you are doing, I ask that you keep it up then. I’ll need it if I’m going to take these bastards out and keep you all alive in there.’_

Kylo’s energy signature darkened again as he heard Hux slam a nearby door in frustration. _‘How long do you think you’ll be out there?’_

 _‘Hopefully not too long. Why, do you miss me already?’_ she snipped back with a flirty tone.

Kylo snorted defensively. _‘Of course not.’_

 _‘Yes, you do. Don't try to lie to me, you know I will always see right through it.’_ she thought back to him with a cocky smirk in her tone.

Kylo couldn’t argue with her, she did always knew the truth from him, annoying as it was. And he did already miss her company... the Force-bond just wasn’t as good as reality was.

A soft smile broke across her face as she pushed under a collection of thick branches. _‘I need for you to do something... it is important. Go to the back of that building, and find yourself a quiet room. Tell the others you need some time to meditate and not to bother you.’_ A stream of confusion had started to come through the bond, when she cut it off. _‘Don't question it, just do it. And don’t make me regret doing this.’_

Several minutes later, Kylo’s voice popped back up over the connection. _‘Ok, I’m in a room on the other side of the station from the others. I told them to leave me alone for a little while, that I had to meditate on some things. It smells terrible in here… like a cheap industrial cleanser. I hate the way that artificial lemon smells.’_

The woman laughed uproariously as she darted through a small clearing. The mountains still lay a ways ahead, their snowcapped edges ominously lit beneath the moon-darkened sky. _‘If a bad lemony smell’s the worst thing you encounter tonight, Kylo, then you should consider yourself quite lucky.’_

His mood lightened immediately at the sensation of her laughter feeding back to him. _‘So now what did you need for me to do in here?’_

In the darkness, her evil golden eyes lit up like iridescent flames. _‘Relax.’_ A sinister smile cracked her lips. _‘And remove that damnable helmet of yours.’_

As soon as his heavy black and silver helmet hit the floor, Kylo’s vision suddenly distorted and then reconvened dizzyingly as a sharp pain hit him at the base of his skull. He was still in the same room, however the offensive lemon cleaner smell was gratefully gone. The pain faded a moment later.

 _‘What the hell was that? Was that you?’_ No response. _‘Hello?’_

The door to the room opened inwards and then closed softly; the woman on the other end of Kylo’s Force bond walked in… completely naked. She pressed her smooth back against the door and flexed her calves outwards in a slow, sensual motion, allowing the young man to view all of her nude body in spectacular detail. She ran her hands over her round, perked up breasts and trailed them down past her hips and then down past her thick, sensuously curved thighs. 

Kylo leapt to his feet and threw his hands out to his sides. “How are you here? Aren’t supposed to be out chasin-“ A single finger planted itself against his confused, plush pink lips to hush his inquiry.

The Force bond tingled with an unspoken suggestion, no, a command. _‘Take off your clothes. You will need to be naked for this to work too.’_

He immediately got the hint. In a furious display of speed and desperation, Kylo removed the layers upon layers of fabric from his body, tunic, cloak, underlayers, belt, pants, boots, and underwear. 

The tall, raven-haired young man now stood nude and at full, glorious attention in front of the seductive woman, who had not moved but instead had kept her backside pressed gently to the door. His hungry eyes lapped at the sight of her greedily, taking in every inch of her glistening skin as if it was food placed before a starving man. 

_‘Kneel down before me.’_ the woman commanded.

The Knight eagerly obeyed, and cast his wide, dark brown eyes to the floor as his imposing height crumpled into a polite kneeling position directly at her tiny feet. A soft press of warmth and weight ran slowly from the top of his head, across his shoulders, to hang down his broad, muscular back. He peeked up to see what it was… it was her right foot and leg, arched up to her knee and curled like a hook to hang around his neck in order for to plant her heel into his back. 

A familiar heat built in his stomach at the sight of the silken leg so close to his face and from the feeling of her heel drilling between his shoulder blades above his spine. His hot, slick tongue slipped out of his soft lips, and he ran it along her skin for as far as he could reach without moving from his kneeling position.

 _‘Good boy. You still know your place.’_

He cast his eyes downwards again in an obvious show of submission. “Yes, my master. What do you wish for me to do?”

The woman unhooked her leg from around his neck and walked around the kneeling form of the handsome young Knight, who did not move as she went. Her eyes studied him predatorily, before she paused over his pile of dark clothes. She bent down for a brief moment, and removed three items from the hastily discarded clothing heap, before returning to where Kylo remained obediently kneeling.

A soft feeling engulfed his eyes as a piece of his cloak was tied across his face to serve as a blindfold. He trembled slightly at the delicate sensation, and felt the hot length between his muscular thighs grow and harden. He licked his lips nervously; whatever she had planned for him, she was using a significant portion of her energy into hiding it from him with the Force.

Suddenly, the sharp sting of leather cracked his exposed back. Kylo cried out into the blindfolded darkness with blinding pain. Her lips tickled the outside edges of his right ear.

 _‘You might want to refrain from doing that… unless you wish for the others to hear you and figure out what's going on.’_

Kylo whimpered from the pain, just before another thin line of fire struck him again in a slightly different location. The clear, cold feeling of liquid exposed to the air told him that blood ran down his back from several places. The young man bit the inside of his cheek from the pain, desperately trying to stifle the expletives he wanted to cry out with. Another strike, the feeling of bone a little too close to the skin at the point of injury made it sting worse than the previous two hits combined. 

Kylo grunted deeply as his breathing rate increased. Another hit. His fingers gripped the short-knap of the carpet tightly, straining his tendons a bloodless white. Another one. Sweat began to drip from his forehead. And another. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, which were thrown open widely and tense. Saliva built up in his mouth, which he swallowed coarsely. The bite of leather once again struck him… and then the sensuous feeling of fingertips and manicured nails trailing around the bloody tracks across his back. The warm, delicate fingers drew little whorls and patterns around his muscles, smearing blood and sweat around in random movements. 

The Knight whimpered as his sweat stung the whip marks across his back with the acid burn of salt and heat. He could feel his large erection, rising hard and proud beneath his body and desperate for attention, and he caught himself flinching towards it to wrap his big fingers around it for stimulation. 

_‘Naughty boy. I never said you could do that.’_

He tensed up instinctively at the idea of being so caught, and hastily withdrew his hand. 

The soft feeling of skin pressed into his as he felt her weight lean against his injured back. He was vaguely aware of the press of her hard nipples into his tender skin, nails dug deep into his shoulders, as her lips set lightly against his ear. 

Her cruel voice was a mere whisper now. _‘Lay down flat on your back. You have to be taught a lesson.’_

Kylo winced at what that might possibly entail, as he unfolded himself to lay flat on the cool floor. The tender, whipped skin of his back burned like fire as the oozing wounds were pressed hard into the knobbly carpet of the floor.

He felt a weight place itself right above his hips but above his straining, painful manhood as she sat down on top of his stomach, knees neatly folded at her sides. 

_‘You will not touch or stimulate yourself until I tell you that you can. If you are bad, that may be never.’_

Kylo nodded in the darkness, and licked his lips tensely.

 _‘Oh… and you may not watch this._ ' She snickered evilly. ‘ _Only good boys may watch shows like this_.’ 

In the sightless world, Kylo waited in anticipation, terror and excitement for her next move. His left hand suddenly lifted of its own accord, guided with the Force, and moved towards the center of his body, before pushing itself into something that was decidedly not his… something warm, wet, and pulsing slightly. He tensed up involuntarily at the realization of what exactly it was, as his hand began to move up and down in a pulsing rhythm. 

He could hear her breathing increase slightly as his hand fucked her from the inside, its delicate ministrations guided not by himself, but by the Force itself. Sweat rolled down his face, soaking his blindfold and stinging his rich velvet-brown eyes. Another finger lifted to join the first one, rolling and curling within her body as it opened her up. Kylo tensed up, his breathing increasing along with hers. 

Soft moans came from the woman’s body atop his, the sounds simultaneously both incredibly primal and perfectly feminine. His fingers pushed deeper inside, a third finger moved upwards and joined the other two, soaked with a slick liquid from deep within her. The young man found himself panting involuntarily, his body ablaze with wanton desire; for the first time, he was jealous of his very own fingers.

The rhythm increased, pressing deeper, faster, rougher. Kylo couldn’t take it anymore. “Please let me see you, or touch you...”

His wish was unexpectedly granted as the woman snatched the blindfold from his angular, porcelain face to reveal her at the moment before she began to reach her orgasm. His gentle brown eyes were thrown open wide as he watched her fuck herself to completion with his hand, such a short distance away on his stomach. The woman’s pretty, delicate face drew itself up, lips screwed tightly together as she began softly groaning and mewling to herself. Her iron-strong thighs gripped the sweat-slicked body of the young man as she rode herself through a pounding climax atop his long, thick fingers.

His desperation ached down to his bones and into the floor. Never before had he wanted anything so badly in his life, as he whimpered his desire for any attention or the right to touch her body. He could smell the sex in the air, and it lit his ancient animal instincts ablaze with pheromones. His slicked left hand lay on his stomach, glistening with fluids that he could only imagine were wiped down around his manhood like he so wanted.

Slowly, giggling with an evil mix of mirth and maliciousness, the woman rose up out of her delirium, and grinned widely. His hand suddenly rose up again of its own accord, and it plunged all three of his dirty fingers into his mouth and past his soft pink lips. 

_‘Clean up this mess._ ’

He swallowed eagerly, tasting the tangy, salty flavor of her sex on his tongue for the first time. His eyes grew distant and hazy with lust as he involuntarily shifted his legs and thrusted once half-heartedly into nothing.

‘ _Good boy… You have more self-control than I thought you capable of having_.’

The sinister woman leaned her head back along his muscular, porcelain torso to glance at his throbbing member, which was purple with neglect. She slipped a single hand down to his manhood, and took it into her powerful grasp. Kylo flinched instinctively at the sudden pressure around his overly sensitive length, and then relaxed as she began to pump him with strong, even strokes. 

His eyes slowly fell closed with pleasure as she milked him, the soothing, exciting sensations sliding along his hot member. Her fingers pushed up high enough to apply pressure around the tip of his shaft, and slid back down, causing his thick, slightly curved length to push upwards and farther into the air; her delicate hand now performing a very convincing imitation of actual penetration and intercourse with her ministrations.

The young Knight gripped the floor with his fingertips as he swallowed in ecstasy, the pumping motion suddenly moving faster and harder. He clenched his teeth tightly as he thrust his large body upwards into the air involuntarily several times, his entire form wracked with in pleasure from raw, instinctive forces. Suddenly, the young man hit his blindingly powerful release with a loud cry out into the quiet air; his eagerly awaited climax announcing its arrival with a pair of heavy spurts of hot liquid that he fired directly into… 

_**…his own hand?**_

Kylo looked down at himself; his sex-soaked mind reeled and took a few moments to come down and comprehend what had occurred. He had most definitely just savagely fucked the shit out of his own hand, the evidence of said act now ran in wide, slightly sticky white trails down his large fingers, and was splattered across the fronts of the broad thighs of his black pants and tunic. He was seated in a chair and still fully clothed, except that he had unzipped his pants and parted the folds of his lower tunic aside for his hand to gain access to himself.

The handsome, bewildered young man snapped his sweat soaked head side to side in half-terror, his long raven-black hair slinging salty sweat droplets around… there was definitely nobody else with him in the quiet little room that smelled strongly of rank, artificial lemon cleaner.

Timidly, he reached out through the Force-bond for an answer. _‘Hello?’_

A moment of silence then cheerfully, a knowing reply. _‘Something wrong?’_ her voice cute and femininely playful.

 _‘W-what just happened… to me?’_ he stammered out nervously.

The woman's voice spoke again in his mind, this time her emotions indicated that she was actually feeling genuinely caring and gentle towards him for once. _‘I wanted to reward you since you were disappointed with getting left behind and felt lonely.’_

 _‘You… you did this?’_ he asked, incredulously.

 _‘Sure did.’_ she said with a smug, pleased tone.

Kylo frowned. _‘It was… all just in my mind?’_

She laughed an affirmative. _‘Yep. Well, all except for your hand there. I could have used just the Force, but I was draining a lot of energy just keeping you from picking up on the fact that I’m out here running through this damned forest and not actually in the room with you, so your hand got to play a part in my little fun.’_ Her voice changed into a snarkier version of her previously bright and cheery one as she detected his mood falling into a dark place. _‘… Oh, don’t get so hung up about it. You enjoyed yourself, and now you’re more relaxed. Besides, I’ve done it before to you, and I’ll damn sure do it again to you too.’_

Kylo drew up his lips into a shamed scowl. _‘Wait… you’ve ‘done it before to me’? One time on the com level… when I was really tired… Was that…’_ Horror bled through their connection as Kylo put two and two together, before she could ever respond with an answer.

‘ _Yep. Guilty as charged.’_ Her smirk didn’t have to be seen, for the strength of her grin was that obnoxiously obvious.

A burst of loud mirthful laughter shattered her previous smugness across their mental connection. ‘ _Congratulations, Kylo Ren… I‘ve found that I do very much enjoy forcing you to you go fuck yourself on random occasion. Now go clean yourself up before that mess you made dries on your clothes._ ’

A mix of hot, wordless embarrassment, physical relaxation, and a tiny bit of sour disappointment ebbed back to her from his side of the Force bond as Kylo refused to respond.

The cruel woman laughed darkly to herself as she leapt over another half-hidden fallen log, and out into the darkness at the foot of the jagged black mountain slope, just as a flurry of crisp white snow began to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Subby Kylo is best Kylo, even if he really just got to yank his crank off with his hand.
> 
> Also, apparently on our favorite bucket's shit list is the smell of artificial lemon cleaner. Can't say I blame him, some of those smell like ass and unhappiness incarnate.


	12. Fatal Exception

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Graphic description ahead (not the schexy type either).

The mountain air burned her skin with frozen fingers as the silent snow fell, creating little delicate starlines against the black night sky. Slowed only fractionally by the building depth, the small form of the shapely body of Project IV trudged through the sparkling white snow and up the sharp stones of the hillside. Her gold-tinged eyes flicked about predatorily; she was on a mission to kill the only beings in the Galaxy that shared her terrifying history. And not doubt about it, they were out there. And very close. 

Her adrenaline heightened Force-sensitivities bounced around, checking every potential shadow and crevice for danger; the flickering signatures of at least two of them were now in close proximity… the twisted, bizarre shadows of the insane creatures that were known only to her as Project I and Project III. 

The precious, mind stabilizing effects of the mental bond that she shared with Kylo Ren had been extremely helpful for several reasons, but for now she appreciated the fact that it was helping her to recall the faint memories that she once thought were lost forever. She paused for a moment and focused down hard on mental ghosts of the two creatures, her mind meditating for several long minutes as she wracked her brain for any information on them or their weaknesses. After a short while, she ceased her efforts when she believed had she had recalled all that she could, while somewhere in the distance, Kylo Ren massaged a terrible migraine out of his forehead as he scrubbed his soiled pants clean in the research center's lavatory.

Project I had been a tall man of average build with long golden-blonde hair, and dark colored skin. She recalled only that he had been kind to her before his mind had been stolen from him. Reflecting on the only shattered mental image that she possessed of the man, she believed that he must’ve been strong with the Light side of the Force, given the soothing, gentle energy signature that she associated with his memory.

Project III had been a rotund, light-skinned woman who stood considerably shorter than herself. The tiny woman had been a diminutive powerhouse of fury, bubbling with naturally strong skills in the Dark side of the Force. Out of all of them, it had been her who had most fiercely resisted her captors. She could recall several terrifying mental snapshots of Project II fighting for her freedom like a demon till the very end. The last time she had seen the small woman, she had witnessed her drawing on all of her crackling energies to melt the durasteel walls of the research facility with her bare hands, taking out several researchers and melting all of the flesh from the bones of her hands in the process.

The woman known as Project IV shook her head crossly at the horrifying images that the memory of Project III’s fiery last stand had conjured up… If people as strong as Project III had fallen into the depths of insanity from their treatment, then by what right did _she_ have to still exist? She must have possessed some innate sensitivities to the Force to have been chosen for the project at all, but she could not remember anything about her original alignment or skills with the Force. However, she could not recall that she had been very strong much of in anything before the experiment had begun... In fact, she actually felt as if she had been a weak, overly sensitive, and foolishly trusting creature before her turn towards the Dark with the Emperor's assistance. But that too raised several questions. If she had not been a powerful person beforehand, why DID they choose her? Was she ever originally aligned with the Light or the Dark side, or had she simply just been somewhat sensitive to its presence? Did anyone alive still remember who or what she originally was before she became the angry, sadistic monstrosity that she was today?

_‘Are you ok?’_

The woman gritted her teeth cruelly as she clenched her left fist hard enough into itself that the nails of her hand drew blood from her soft flesh. She had been so lost in her own mind that she had completely forgotten that all of her thoughts were constantly being monitored by the mind of another… and right now that connection was not one she wanted to have during such a moment of soul-baring weakness.

 _‘I am fine.’_ she growled low in her chest.

 _‘No you aren’t. You… called yourself a monstrosity. What's going on up there?’_ Kylo’s concern suddenly flared hot as he felt her injured hand oozing blood over the distance. _‘You are in terrible pain… And I can feel great internal conflict within you. Please come back. We can just evacuate these last two researchers and abandon the planet, you don’t have to do any of this... especially not right now..’_

She snarled and focused her pain into herself, feeding her Dark energies. _‘Yes I do. I am the only one who can. One way or the other I must be the one to end this.’_

Kylo responded within her mind, his deep voice tense with concern. _‘This fight can wait. I sense something out there that I can’t quite describe, but whatever it is, it is in very close proximity to you right now. It is... looking for you.’_

The woman hissed in obvious annoyance. _’Yes, that much I can tell as well. One of their signatures is fairly close to me right now, but it keeps fading in and out for some reason so I can’t yet identify which one of them it is yet.’_

The young man tried to send soothing energies through the bond to convince her of the truth in his fear. _‘There’s something really not right about this whole thing. Whatever it is, it wants for you to find it more than anything else in the world.‘_

She wasn't taking his bait to lure her back in. _‘Then I will find it and end it.’_ she said simply, not acknowledging his worries in anyway. She didn't need for him to be fawning over her like a nervous mother hen, she could handle whatever this thing was on her own.

Weird, unnatural energies seeped through from her end that frightened the Dark Force-user to his very core. _‘No, it’s… doing something **strange** to you right now that I don't understand. You need to get out of there, now!!’_

Confused, she inquired further. _‘Doing 'something' to me?-‘_

As the fragment of thought left her mind to cross the distance to Kylo, a chilling melody flittered past her, caught up on a bitter breeze; its fragile words lost forever to the howl of the icy wind. The hairs on her neck stood on end. _‘I can hear… **Singing** ...’_

A mental flood of protective, possessive terror coursed through the connection from the tensed young man. _‘What?’_ Kylo reached his own senses through hers and examined her current environment through her body. _‘No you don’t… There’s no sounds at all out there but the wind. Something is very wrong. Whatever that thing out there is, its messing with your mind. You aren’t well! Please… Come back to me.’_

The song grew louder, the volume of the languid melody overtaking her senses, and yet somehow becoming more indistinct. Although the words were lost in the blurring effects, it felt… _familiar_ . 

With a jolt of gut-wrenching horror, her mind suddenly recalled where she had heard the song before. The melody had been sung to her just once, many years before… She had heard it sung from an adjacent cell by one of the other captives while she hung from heavy shackles and chains as her body starved for countless days in punishment. It was an ancient tune, its haunting lyrics were from a language that were native to no living tongue… and it had once soothed and healed her broken body. 

_The song was that which the man known only as Project I had sang to her, on the day that his mind was taken away forever._

A suddenly flood of emotion and understanding caused her vicious Dark Side derived powers to flare up white-hot… Project I had been not just _any_ run-of-the-mill Light-side Force-user, but one of the last of the Jedi... the now all but extinct legion of Light Side Force-users that once held the Galaxy in their hands. That mystic song that now rang in the young woman's ears was actually an ancient song of healing, its powers intended for use in battle by the Jedi. And now, that powerful man was out here somewhere out in the ice and snow, his mind broken into insanity and lost forever due to the bastards that had damned them all to their various ends. 

_Projects I and III deserved better than this ignoble fate, even if it was at the end of her lightsaber._

The three other Projects were the only people who knew what it was like to be like her, to truly know what she had gone through. And now, they were currently damned to roam about this hideous planet forever like vengeful, feral ghosts given flesh, unless she could find them and end their insanity and suffering.

 _‘Please, come back. Don’t face this alone. We need to understand what you are up against out there. I can help you.’_ Kylo’s deep voice tried to be a confident pillar of strength, but his helpless panic bled through the connection loud and clear. _‘This isn’t like you at all. Come back, you don’t have to do this...’_

A bolt of black fire blew through her veins, scorching the ground in fury. _“YES… I DO! THEY **NEED** ME!! ONLY ME!!” _ she bellowed into the snowstorm, causing several large rocks to break off and tumble down the darkened hillside into the forest below.

Kylo’s voice suddenly trailed off, still begging for her to return to safety as his words died unheard as the song reached deafening levels of volume. 

The rage-sharpened mind of Project IV now no longer hear the soothing, stabilizing voice of Kylo Ren, only the ancient tune in her mind which grew more louder and discordant. Free of Kylo’s support, her mind began to burn hot and furious as her emotions flew about unchecked. Her breathing quickly increased into a heavy cadence of panting, her delicate fists knotted up into solid balls of iron. Black energy roiled outwards from her in visible waves, the pressure and heat hollowing out and melting the snow from underneath her feet in a broad, circular shape. _Hatred. Anger. Vengeance._

‘ _…ki-kil-kiiill… me…_ ’

She turned slowly around, her breathing coarse and steam coiling outwards from her open mouth like smoke from the nostrils of a smoldering dragon… _The source of the voice_. 

A figure stood silently, several meters back and half obscured in the driving snow. Something was off about the way that it stood though, as if one of the calves of its legs was larger than the other. One of its arms did not hang as far down as its partner did. The body began moving towards her, the motion uncoordinated and jerky in a way that no living creature would ambulate; a hastily thrown together, neglected puppet of flesh that was missing some of its constituent parts. The creature shambled towards her, dragging a foot that was twisted backwards and bent at an unnatural angle… 

An age-darkened corpse impossibly stood upright against the driving snow and wind, facing her in silence.

 _It’s face…_

The woman’s violently destabilized emotional state abruptly flipped from hatred to abject horror at the sight of what was once the dead thing’s face. A rotten skull flashed a foul, rictus grin back at her. One pale, baleful blue eye burned ominously, the pupil long since rendered useless and non-functional; the other eye a piercing and vicious yellow and red combination reminiscent of those from the Sith of old. Half of the flesh of its head was mutilated from rot and the other half had been torn free in some unknown incident; a flap of grey-brown skin and hair hung loosely at the evil creature’s neck, flapping slightly in the breeze. The hair… was _blonde_.

 _Project I… the Jedi._

A deep, profound emotion of grief overtook her fear at the pathetic sight of the shambling, broken corpse of the man. The horrid man-turned-thing was weathered and had been battered into an unrecognizable state; only his energy-signature and the tuft of blonde hair atop his shredded, leathery scalp remained to identify him. Even the holy Light Side essence that once permeated his presence was gone, leaving only a dried husk of spent, tortured flesh. For how long had the decaying corpse of the Jedi wandered the blistering stones of the mountainside?

‘ _…yearrsss…_ ’ came the impossible voice of the dead thing standing before her. She blinked snowflakes from her eyes, mind trying to wrap its head around the impossible fact that something so obviously dead could somehow speak. In spite of it all, somehow the corpse had definitely spoken to her… however its words been entirely transmitted through her mind. 

Tears flooded her golden eyes as she ran her Force-sensitivities over the mutilated, rancid body. Deep within, an almost undetectable flicker of mind remained; a single, tenuous thread that felt fragile, ancient, and due to snap at any moment. ‘ _…eennnndd… …thiiisssss…_ ’ The piercing red-and-yellow eye moved about in its socket almost aimlessly; the corpse’s eyes twitched with a spastic, uncoordinated firing of involuntary muscles, the pin-prick black pupil of the yellow eye only occasionally landing and focusing on her at random. 

The woman bit her pink lip and winced in pain. “Tell me, Project I... Where are the others?” No response. The thin thread of sanity had suddenly vanished; the skull of the thing before her now once again hollow and lifeless. The corpse continued its broken shuffling gait as it continued coming closer to her, while the song’s volume slowly increased to near-deafening levels. _‘…eennnnddd… ….plplpleeassse….._ ‘ The fragile thread of communication returned abruptly; the faint spark of sanity inexplicably regained.

With gritted teeth, she focused down hard through the din of the song and onto the thin mental conduit between the two Force-users, desperate to know what he did- ‘ _… STSTOSTOOPPPP…._ ’ -And she was instantly struck hard down to one knee in the snow. Blood trickled from her mouth, and a wave of nausea caused her to double over onto her knees to vomit her stomach contents violently into the snow. 

The insanity of undeath had coursed into her mind like vile poison; her already fragile mind wracked with pain and unspeakable horrors from her poorly chosen attempt to try and connect and communicate with the rotten, barely coherent brain of the thing that stood before her. The fleeting connection had flooded her mind with years of absolutely putrid imagery and the nightmarish tortures that had been inflicted upon him; the sheer hell of his existence was splattered with the mental anguishes of being fully aware of your own body as it rotted away. 

Her mind now reeled with existential crises of concepts that one who was living should simply not possess; pieces of yourself shriveling and falling away forever, the awareness of the slow inevitability of losing who you were due to the steady desiccation of brain and neural tissues, and the nightmare effects of physical decomposition processes and rot that churned once-living flesh into dust. Above it all was the hideous emotions; the pain of loneliness, the fear of never knowing what horrors awaited you in due time, and the helplessness to make any of it stop… for all of eternity. 

Claw like, skeletal hands weakly gripped her face and head as the corpse finally reached her, while she knelt in the freezing snow. Had the tendons and muscles not been taut, weakened, and drawn up from age and exposure to the elements, this might have constituted a viable method of attack. But instead of evoking fear and panic, the vicious 'mauling' that she was receiving from the once-proud body of Project I was simply a pathetic and heart-wrenching pantomiming of violence. 

The woman gathered herself back up and swallowed hard as she brushed aside the weak, dead hands. Her gold-tinged eyes burned forward into the incoherent, puppet-like movements of its lifeless eyes, its snapping brown skeletal fingers and broad jaws. The bony hinges of the skull clicked as its broken white teeth gnashed together as it drew its mouth closer to her, the rotten maw open wide and desperate to consume her life energy. 

The ancient song swirled thick and hazy about her mind… It was at that moment that she sensed that it was all coming from within _his_ mind.

 _The maddening song…_

It suddenly dawned on her. His own ancient song of healing was the key to his eternal torment and her current madness. What once had brought healing power to living flesh, apparently had a similar but less-effective response to dead flesh... and it was what now sustained his body into horrific undeath. The words of its powerful lyrics were constantly summoning the holy Light of the Force, imploring it to heal his broken corpse just enough to keep it upright and semi-functional. 

Tears slipped from her hot, burning eyes and down onto the uncoordinated, leathery fingers of the corpse. Swallowing a knot in her throat, she pulled the twin sabers from her hips and ignited them in the darkness, sending crimson reflections bouncing around the ice and snow. The dead man continued his feeble assault, the threads of his mind so broken and warped that he never registered the ruby-red beams as a threat to himself… Or perhaps he did recognize them, but didn’t care that it was... perhaps somewhere in his nightmare existence, he actually welcomed it.

A sweet, sickly odor of decaying flesh stung her nose, as she lifted her eyes to meet his incoherent, unfocused dead ones. The corpse mindlessly pressed against her, its mouth clacking softly just a short distance away from her flesh. “I’m so sorry. Please… _forgive me_ .”

‘ _….ffforrrgivvennn..._ ’ 

With a sharp cry, the twin sabers crossed before her face, slicing the dead man’s skull into two neat horizontal slices, which slid outwards left and right from one another before falling into the snow. The headless corpse teetered on its feet a few more moments… and then toppled into the soft white snow like a dead branch from a leafless tree. His energy signature faded gently into the night; the spirit of the long-dead Jedi was now a rising flicker of warmth that ascended into the night sky, soaring away to its final journey on the otherside.

Free of the wracking emotional maelstrom that the dead man had inflicted upon her from his presence, the woman dropped to her knees at the feet of the now stilled corpse, wrapped her arms around her chest, and sobbed uncontrollably in the center of the snow storm. The world grew soft and silent once more as the ancient song faded in her ears…a few moments later, no sound remained at all save for the howl of the bitter, hateful wind. 

Somehow, even the snow felt even colder than it had before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blisteringly hot smut in the previous chapter, creepy af, suicidal, singing zombie Jedi science-experiments-gone-wrong in the next. 
> 
> Goddamn man, writing is so much fun! <3


	13. Emergency Stabilization Protocol In Progress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To make up for the decidedly-not-schexy last chapter, here, have yourself a schexy bonus chapter. NSFW.
> 
> PS: If you've made it this far into this story without figuring out what 'NSFW' means in the context of these characters, then you deserve exactly what you get to read. :)

Kylo Ren paced furiously around in the cage that was the main research facility building, his mind desperately trying to reconnect with his lover, who had suddenly fallen out of all communications with him. Something was very, very wrong with her… she had oscillated from self-flagellating and sensitive, to furious anger and rage, to fear and grief within minutes. And for the time being, he could do absolutely nothing about it but fume and sulk impotently. His piercing dark eyes flicked over to an unused computer console as he ignited his lightsaber and gritted his teeth… 

General Brendol Hux heard the commotion from the main lobby of the facility, and placed his pale hand over his face in exasperated anguish. _Ren_. He didn’t even have to look in the direction that the damnable sound of dying electronic equipment was coming from, he could tell from the howls of fury from the Dark Force-user and the distinctive growl of the Commander’s saber as it tore its way through thick steel and plastic. “Goddammit Ren, we’re here to protect this facility, not to make things worse!” he muttered over his slender fingers. 

The two remaining First Order researchers cowered at their lighted consoles, hands still nervously poised over the Imperial computer stations as they listened to the unholy hell that Kylo Ren was making as he wailed against one of the machines. Hux noticed their drawn, fearful faces, and smirked. “Just ignore his tantrum, he won’t hurt you much unless you happen to become a workstation within the next few minutes.” 

One of the researchers, a young man with light brown hair and green eyes, tried cracking a broken grin and timidly went back to his work. The other researcher, an older man with a potbelly and a long silver ponytail and glasses, looked from Hux to the sparking, arcing mess that Kylo had made, and then back to Hux with a worried face. “If you want, we’ve uncovered a method of controlling some of the more problematic aspects of Dark Force users… ” 

Hux raised a single red eyebrow with interest. “Tell me, please.” The older man adjusted his lanyard and ID badge nervously as he stood and spoke. “You have to administer a very high initial dose of particular type of serotonin reuptake inhibitor… it is usually administered through either an oral bolus or via intramuscular injecti-“ 

Hux frowned with annoyance as he cut the senior researcher off. “By that you mean _drug_ him.” The silver haired researcher pushed his glasses up his nose with one hand as he nodded in the affirmative. “I’m not volunteering to do the job of administering the dose, but I can synthesize the compound…” 

The ginger-haired general took his black hat off and rubbed his scalp in frustration. “We _aren’t_ drugging him. He’s bad enough as he is without adding any other _special effects_ into that hot mess.” The older man sat back down in his chair and sheepishly went back to his work, refusing to make eye contact with either Hux or the smoldering pile of slag that was once a functional computer console. 

Hux picked up his comlink with a snort as he replaced his hat. “Captain Phasma, report please?”

A woman’s voice on the other end picked up, her tone confident and smooth. “Nothing to report here, sir. My unit has just finished searching the expanded grounds and have not detected anything. We have also not found any sign of the missing researchers.” 

Hux grimaced. Phasma had been down on the planet for at least the last seven hours and hadn’t found anything, yet the researchers were indeed missing without a trace. Nothing about this entire thing made sense. Perhaps that yellow-eyed woman of Kylo’s who had claimed a connection with the Imperials was onto something…

Hux keyed up again. “Call off your remaining search and return to the main research facility.” He hesitated for a moment before continuing with the answer to the question that he knew she was just about to ask. “We’ve… received some information that seems to indicate that there may be some potentially Force-sensitive hostiles out there of unknown type and capability. It’s been strongly suggested that we remain inside the primary compound.” 

Phasma’s voice called back over the comlink, her voice now tinged with confusion. “We’ve found no evidence to support the presence of Force-users or other sentient beings out here, for that matter. Who exactly advised this course of action, sir?” 

Hux sighed with annoyance. He KNEW she was going ask THAT question. “An associate of Ren’s.” The comlink went silent for a ten plus second, awkwardly pregnant pause that indicated that Phasma was likely asking her nearby cadre of trusted Stormtroopers if they had heard any rumors of Ren having any new associates. ”Sir?” 

The General sighed. _Fine_. “Exactly as I stated. She claims that she came from this planet, and apparently has some link with the Galactic Empire.” 

The comlink went silent again, as Phasma pondered his words. “Me and my team will report back to base immediately. Phasma out.”

Like a marauding black wraith, Kylo Ren marched up and down the halls, his mind reeling with fury and his fingers twitching at the ignition switch of his lightsaber. He had just turned a corner and into a dimly lit hallway when suddenly the mental connection flared bright again. He screeched to a stop and immediately reached out, almost frantically. _‘Are you alright?! Tell me!’_

A long, terrible pause before the voice he had waited to hear rang through… _‘Yeah. I’m… I’m fine. A little disoriented is all.’_

The young Force-user’s body released the breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding onto with a loud puff of air. _‘What happened out there? You feel so distant right now.’_

Her mental connection wavered strangely, almost as if she was trying to suppress any unwanted emotional acknowledgements. _‘I dispatched Project I. Nothing more._ ’ 

Kylo knew that was a bold faced lie. There had been a LOT more to it than a simple ‘dispatching’… and she knew that he knew it too. He felt throughout her body and her recent experiences… Her memories and tormented emotional state all registered that she had done something that she had not wanted to do, and was angry at herself for her weakness. She felt like she had just murdered an innocent person, someone she had once considered friendly, however she was torn because he had also been an enemy, and had needed to be put down for both his and her sake. 

In spite of his desire to convince her otherwise, Kylo rightly figured that she needed some quiet time to sort herself out without him injecting his opinions into her extremely personal conflict. ‘ _At least it is done. You did well. Please let me know if you need anything from me, I’m going to go check up on everyone else over here.’_

The connection between the two grew warm for a moment as wordless thanks ebbed from her to him. Kylo’s face lit up pink under his heavy black and silver mask; that was all the confirmation he needed. 

Three hours passed with no additional issues. Captain Phasma had surprised Kylo by reporting into the research facility along with a team of ten of her most trusted and senior Stormtroopers, and Hux had sourly found a room by himself to sleep in. The connection with the woman known as Project IV was uneventful as well as she ascended the mountain; she was busy looking for the woman called Project III, and she still had not been able to relocate the man called Project II.

Kylo Ren, the Master of the Knights of Ren and Commander of the _Finalizer_ … _was bored out of his ever-loving mind._

He wanted to be out with Project IV, defeating enemies with his lightsaber and his legendary abilities with the Force, not sitting around and watching an old, fat researcher man push his glasses up some 2.5 times a minute as he typed furiously at his console. He then remembered the Imperial datapad that he had spent so much time reading and picking through... he patted through his tunic and robes... _Shit_. He had left it on the Command Shuttle.

The Command Shuttle was outside on the landing zone, maybe a hundred yards out from the building. He knew that he had been explicitly instructed not to leave the building, however Phasma had been out for many hours and nothing had happened to her or any of her Stormtroopers. Surely he could go out there and grab the datapad?

Trying his best to not alert the woman on the other end of his mental connection, Kylo Ren quietly slipped out of a side door and headed for the Command Shuttle. It was still pitch black and in the middle of the night, with that damnable new moon hanging like a shroud overhead. A cold wind picked its way through the needles and branches of the pines, creating a soft hiss as it blew past. Stars speckled the sky… It all seemed so serene. Peaceful.

The tall young man reached the back of the Shuttle, lowered the ramp and ascended into the bowels of the dimly lit ship. He drew up the loading ramp as he reached the pilot’s chair. His quick, intelligent eyes spied the datapad, sitting right where he had left it. With a sigh, he flopped down into the comfortable, plushy seat before reaching up to remove his helmet. Kylo placed the helmet up on the ship’s broad dashboard console before placing two fingers up to his right temple, to rub the soft skin above his skull with a bit of soothing pressure. 

Even though his trip to the Shuttle had been uneventful, he had harbored a not inconsiderable bit of tension for having disobeyed the powerful, easily angered woman’s direct command, and he had also feared running into someone or some _thing_ that he had not wanted to. But now, tucked within his comfortable plushy leather seat, at the controls of his own ship, the handsome Dark Force user felt considerably more relaxed. A wide, satisfied smile broke across his soft pink lips.

‘ _Kylo? Where are you?’_ The Commander about flipped his helmet off of the dash console as he swung his arms outwards in panic. _‘I-I-..’_ he stammered. 

The emotional connection with her darkened. _'I told you not to leave. Why the hell did you go out… The datapad? Why, of all the stupid things…’_

Kylo grimaced… she knew. No reason to lie now. _‘I guess I shouldn’t have. I was really just bored and needed something to do'._ he mumbled uncomfortably. Apologizing like a scolded child to another was still an obnoxiously new sensation for him.

The connection abruptly grew lighter with a hint of amusement in her voice at his discomfort. _‘Frankly, I’m pretty bored out here too. Project III must’ve figured out that I took out Project I and has stifled her Force-signature, as has Project II. He’s been hiding for a very long time now, and could be absolutely anywhere. I feel like I’m running in circles out here trying to find either of them right now. It’s rather trying.’_

Kylo smirked as he tapped his fingers idly on the black steel of the control panel. _‘I’ll gladly trade spots with you.’_

Laughter at long last rang through the Force bond. _‘Oh, you’ll do no such thing, Kylo Ren... In addition to not being capable of doing so, **you** have been bad, and have willfully chosen to disobey a direct order from me at least once so far today.’_

Kylo lifted a single broad, dark eyebrow in curiosity, before breaking into a wide, lusty grin. ‘ _Have I been bad enough to be punished for it?'_

‘Perhaps…’ she sneered. 

Kylo shrugged dismissively. _‘That would solve my boredom problems, you know.’_

The connection between the two suddenly grew warm with a dark sort of flirtatiousness. The feminine voice on the distant end of the bond crooned seductively as she touched the young man's mind. _'You’ve been such a bad boy... so bad in fact that I choose not help you this time.’_

Kylo’s once flirty expression flattened itself out into a sour scowl. _‘You won’t help me?’_ his deep voice almost a plea.

A cocky sense of sadistic pleasure rang through her mind as she responded. _'No. I’m sure you’re old enough know how to handle yourself. Get to it… Entertain me. And then head back to the research building to wait with the others for me to return.’_

Kylo’s deep brown eyes lit up wickedly at the odd 'permission granted' signal. He steadied his fingers on the dashboard and focused his mental powers on sending an erotic scenario back through the connection; he sent images of his fingers unzipping, touching improper places, his tongue lapping at… 

Laughter suddenly burst through and into his mind from the distant woman. ‘ _You dolt... I said handle YOURSELF, not ME. Besides, your powers with the Force aren’t strong enough to sustain a fully immersive sexual fantasy like how I can.’_

His long, angular face screwed up tightly in frustration. ‘ _Did anything happen at all on your end just now?’_ he asked, with hope dying in his words. 

She snickered back through the connection, immediately amused with his curiosity. _‘That WAS you who did that just now, wasn’t it? Actually, I just now about jumped ten feet when my underwear unexpectedly started moving downwards inside my pants. I had to stop in a snowbank and pull them up.’_

The young man’s face grew darker with embarrassment and annoyance as she continued, cheerfully. ‘ _I’ll teach you how to hone those skills later. For now, focus on yourself. Give me a good show out here and maybe I’ll go easy on you the next time I am with you.’_

The young man sighed with resignation and flopped back into his plush chair. ‘ _What do you want to see me do to myself?_ '

A huff of annoyance came through from her. _‘You figure it out. I just want to watch. Be creative.’_

Kylo pursed his lips. _‘Creative?’_

Another exasperated sigh came through from her end. _‘Look, either you entertain me, or I’m sticking that funny looking lightsaber of yours right up your ass and leaving it there.’_ Before Kylo could respond with an indignant response, she snipped a snarky response back to him. _‘And don’t you for a second think I wouldn’t.’_

Kylo wracked his brain for a few moments, trying to decide what he should do, lest he find himself being rather rudely violated with his own weapon. After a short while, he settled on an easy start by removing all of his clothes and sitting back down into the pilot’s chair. The cold air of the cabin nipped at his skin, leaving little patches of gooseflesh across his broad shoulders and arms. Still not certain of what exactly he could do to get ‘entertaining’ or ‘creative’ with, given that he only had himself at the moment, he placed his fingers around his mostly soft manhood and began absently stroking himself. 

_‘Kylo.’_

_‘Yeah?’_

_‘You are boring the hell out of me.’_

Kylo rolled his eyes and sighed. _‘Sorry. I am trying.’_

 _‘No you aren’t, you aren’t even hard yet.’_ she mumbled in obvious boredom.

His anger began to rise, as he stroked himself harder in frustration. _‘I’m working on it. I'm not a machine you know.’_ he growled.

A deep sigh left her as she rubbed her forehead. _‘Perhaps it would be more entertaining if you were. To be honest, at this moment I’m not even sure why I thought this plan was a good idea.’_

Kylo snarled. His fingers moved faster and with more purpose. His soft pink length began to respond at last to his physical stimulation, and it began to thicken and rise upwards. He grinned with accomplishment at the sight and increasingly pleasurable feeling. __

_‘You can do better than that. That’s just sad.’_ her sweet, mocking voice piped up again.

The tall young man screwed up his lips and hissed angrily. _'You really aren't helping this process with your insults.'_

At the moment, he thought that he could literally hear her eyes rolling with disinterest. _'I'll insult you as long as it takes to get the job done... which at your rate appears to be sometime later this year.'_

The young Commander switched hands and began furiously pumping himself, his injured ego and simmering anger now turning into bellowing rage at her cruel, derogatory comments. His legendary, fiery temper suddenly began to peek through his fragile emotional shields. ‘ _I TOLD YOU, I’M WORKING ON IT!’_ his words spat out over his tightly clenched teeth.

She hissed back derisively, her tone indicating that she was entirely unfazed by his rising temper. _‘Pathetic little boy. You can’t even get hard without me hurting your pretty body or belittling your overly timid cock.’_

Kylo shouted an expletive... and then drew back in amusement as he realized that as his fury had risen, so had his manhood. When he had become truly angry and full of emotion, he had almost simultaneously became rock hard and rigidly erect. He also came to realize that what was once gentle stroking, was now him angrily fucking the shit out of his hand with his dark pink, newly hardened shaft. Emboldened with his new finding, he screamed out at her in his mind. _‘I’LL SHOW YOU!’_

The woman sent him a long, luxurious yawn in response. _‘I’m still waiting to not be bored.’_

Kylo cursed softly in the dim light of the Command Shuttle. _Creativity._ That's what she said she wanted to see, and apparently his 'performance' had not yet qualified as 'creative' in her eyes. His white teeth glinted in the reflected red control lights of the Command Shuttle as sweat beaded up across his chest and forehead. The muscles of his arms and legs were tensed and knotted up, every ounce of his vicious energy was focused into his furious pumping or into his attempt to show her mocking voice up. The grinding heat within his body had started to burn hot beneath his porcelain pale skin, as his breathing changed to heavy puffs of angry air. His muscular torso bent forward and doubled over itself in order to put more visceral effort into his activities and provide even more stimulation against himself. 

Her mocking voice rang between his ears again. _‘Ha! Nothing about anything that you are currently doing is particularly creative. You will still lose this round, even if you finish.’_

Kylo’s lust-soaked, rage-filled eyes darted around the cabin of the ship for anything use in his efforts to 'spice up' his current activities… Just as he had considered attempting to awkwardly penetrate a small, round - and hopefully, unelectrified - oxygen port in the cabin of the shuttle, he suddenly remembered something that she had done to him earlier that he had later appreciated.

The tall, muscular young man grinned evilly as he leaned back almost flat in the plush leather pilot’s chair, and spread his arms out wide away from his body. With a flick of his hands, he manipulated the Force into continuing to stroke himself, while simultaneously applying several thick, invisible bindings around his throat, wrists, and legs. 

He slowly drew back on the binding around his throat, choking him slightly and flushing his face red, as slowly his entire body lifted slightly away from the pilot’s chair. Suspended now a meter up above the chair and floating in thin air via the Force, the handsome young man relaxed his pale body and stretched languidly, his movements no longer restricted by gravity. His long, wavy, raven-black hair floated softly around his angular face, tickling his skin slightly and causing him to close his eyes in the weird pleasure of levitation. 

The invisible bindings around his wrists pulled towards each other behind him, straining the big tendons in his arms with sharp pain and a few loud pops. At the sensation, Kylo thrust heavily up into the air and into nothing, his teeth grinding together with rapturous torture. The binding at his neck suddenly pulled up short, cutting off his air supply for a short moment before allowing him to breathe once more with a loud cry. His body twisted and curled up onto itself in the air, fighting against the wracking pleasure and pain.

Invisible hands scratched deep at the soft skin of his chest, as brimstone and liquid cinders pumped hot through his wide veins. He pushed against nothing, feeling the pop of tendons and the tightness of his own muscles; his invisible hands could feel wetness leaking out and trickling down from the rock hard tip of his throbbing, angry shaft. He was getting close, and he chewed his soft pink lips in anticipation.

Kylo focused back onto the sensations of his manhood, feeling the hard length pushing forcefully against heated, invisible hands of warm iron. His body tensed up, enjoying the feeling of the world falling farther away as he neared his furious climax. 

As the handsome young Commander neared his explosive peak, he suddenly became aware of a distant tingle in his mind… It was that of the person tethered to the other end of his mental connection. He knew immediately from the red-hot sensations and gasping breaths that flowed from her distant location just exactly what she was doing to herself, and he smirked cruelly. _‘Oh, now **what** is this?’_ his voice suddenly cute and innocent.

 _‘SHUT UP.’_ she hissed hatefully through the Force-bond. 

He had her right where he wanted her. _‘No… I don't believe I will.’_ He knew he would pay for his sass-mouth later, but his inhibitions were gone and he wanted to twist the knife a little to watch _her_ squirm for once. _‘I do believe that I am now entitled to tell YOU to go fuck yourself, am I correct?’_ he hissed back in deep, breathy tones. 

She snarled hatefully but said nothing, her mind too temporarily clouded with lust as she furiously massaged the hot, wet nub between her fingertips into a rising frenzy of slicked, sensuous thrusting, stifled moans, and the throes of wanton pleasures.

Kylo bit his lower lip as he felt her nimble fingers through the bond stimulating her most sensitive regions and her opening clenching hard as she reached her climax, both of them wishing for all the world that his hard length was there to fill it. 

Emboldened by her fiery passions and drawing up a great amount of effort, Kylo suddenly drew hard against all of his Force bindings at once; the motion pulling his arms nearly together behind his back, his large feet nearly forced up to rest against his smooth, pale asscheeks, and the binding at his throat jerked his head backward and downwards, causing his chiseled jaw to point upwards to the ceiling. 

Blinding pain now coursed through his slender, masculine form as his aching muscles cried out; the hateful burn of overstretched skin and heavy tendons fighting against being overdrawn against their physical limitations, had sent his adrenaline levels into low orbit. Tears pricked and built in his beautiful, expressive brown eyes as he scrunched his face and abruptly thrust his hips involuntarily upwards. 

With a desperate, pleading whimper and soft moan, the young man hit his powerfully expelled peak, sending several pulses of thick, white liquid emissions upwards and onto the low black ceiling of the shuttle. He clenched his eyes closed tightly as he rode out the last star-studded moments of his wrenching orgasm.

Slowly, Kylo lowered himself back into the pilot’s chair and panted for several long moments as he recovered. His body ached all over, but his blinding release and powerful orgasm had been incredibly satisfying. He already wanted to do it again... and then he scowled in disgust as he looked at the splattered mess on the ceiling. _How the hell had he managed to get it up there?_

The voice on the other end suddenly piped up again, this time instead of sarcastic and mean, it was breathy, spent, and exhausted, like his own. _‘I’m going to break you in half the next time I see you, you wretched, evil little boy.’_

Kylo wiped the sweat from his forehead and grinned a wide, easy smile as he admired the smeared, glistening beads of water on his hand in the low light. ‘ _Bring it right the fuck on... I'll be waiting for you._ ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, someone's got some sass in him. ::cracks whip:: He'll learn his place again soon.
> 
> Also, the BlackGoshawk award for best line ever goes to Reader/Project IV, for this delightful sentence: "‘ _Look, either you entertain me, or I’m sticking that funny looking lightsaber of yours right up your ass and leaving it there._ ’" 
> 
> Truly, she is one of us. 
> 
> ::hushed chant rises over the audience:: 'One of us! One of us!'


	14. Critical Error

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: More torture, horror, mental WTF-ery, and gore. Enjoy.

“Can you hear it?”

“Nonononono, mmyyy Maaaasstttter.”

“His song has finally stopped. She is coming.”

“Hhhhaaaaas sshhhhhe awaaaakkkkennneddd yeeettt?”

“No. But she is close. Even closer than I, at the moment…. Hmph. … _Wait._ Now that IS interesting...”

“Whhhha?”

“Her mind is intertwined with that of the traitor’s descendant… Most interesting, indeed.”

“Hhhhowwwww is thhhhatttt possssibbbble?”

“As I said, she is closer to awakening than I. Her abilities are growing at an exponential rate. But… there is something else.” 

“Whhhaaaattt, howww?”

“She _loves_ him… that man who carries the traitor’s blood.”

“Thhhennn weeee wwwwillll breeeeaaaaak hhhher.”

“No. _You_ will break nothing. You are a worthless abomination that I am loathe even now to bear witness to.”

“Mmmmmaaassssterrrr, buuuut I ammmm caaaapaaaabllllle offff-“

“YOU… Will keep her occupied. I will break HIM, and then I will reclaim my Empire from those fools in the First Order.”

“…Masssstttterrrrr… diiddd youuu meaaaannn ‘Ouuuurrrr Emmmmpirrrrre’?”

*SZCHHHINK!!*

"I did _not_ stutter. Now go. Fulfill your final service to me.”

“…urrgghhh…”

  
\-----------------------------------------v^v^v^v^v^v^-----------------------------------------

Dawn rose gently over the freezing black mountains, the sunrise staining the ground a fiery pink as it sent glittering reflections dancing about in the faceted face of the twisted rime ice and snowdrifts. Flakes of loose snow flittered about, collecting in small updrafts and sailing down the mountainside in playful whorls. Rocks jutted out every here and there like the old bones of a dead beast; the half-hidden stones were strewn about like deadly traps, hoping to ensnare a careless foot and send its owner tumbling to their demise.

It had been through this frigid hell-scape that the small figure of the woman known as Project IV had searched all night for her adversaries; the remaining Force-sensitive final creations of the fallen Galactic Empire’s research division, that had been code named PROJECT: Dark Phoenix. Three of the four remained… herself, Project II and Project III.

And at the moment, the tiny woman known as Project III’s signature had suddenly lit up like a beacon in the dawn-dim light… she was nearby… and she was mortally wounded. 

Project IV leapt over the top of a pointed cliff face to take perch upon a small precipice. She looked down the steep slope, honing her powerful senses into the exact direction of the energy of her opponent… _There._

Nearly 1,000 meters down, on the other side of a cluster of jagged stones, the signature pulsed in her mind. The strength of the mental image was so strong that it was nearly illuminating the spot behind the rocks in her visual cortex.

She braced herself, as she firmly ground her toes into her perch for the final time and took the Emperor’s lightsaber hilts into her hands… and leapt out into open space. 

As she fell headfirst, she opened her arms out, allowing her long, silken black cape to flow up and above her like the folded wings of a deranged falcon in a stoop. The fabric was strong and did not tear or shred, however the wind whipping by at breakneck speeds made an ominous sizzling sound that could be heard echoing across the entire mountainside. Cold, biting air froze the skin of her cheeks and forehead, creating fine pale crystals as they frosted up the light oils of her skin. 

The distance at which she fell afforded her a few important moments of time, which she used to ignite the silver and gold colored twin ruby-red sabers and to summon up a ferocious howl of Dark energy… which she landed in with both feet extended, the bubble of energy crushing outwards under the weight of her fall, sending a few tons of displaced snow and ice sailing outwards and blasting apart several nearby stone formations. 

Rock and snow rained down in all directions, however most of the debris that came directly back down pittered and bounced helplessly off of the pale, faintly red energy shield that surrounded the beautiful, deadly woman as she stood up slowly. Her vicious, partially-gold colored eyes surveyed the damage and the environment for her enemy…

…who hung helplessly a few meters away, impaled by a piece of metal that had been rammed through her abdomen and into a heavy slab of rock.

The tiny form of Project III snarled hatefully, the steam rising in coils around her round face. A pair of unnaturally yellow and red eyes blazed out from under her dark brown locks. The once pale skin around her throat was freshly burned and stunk of roast flesh and hair. Her head jerked weirdly every now and then, while her hands clenched and unclenched spastically on twitching arms; the charred, skeletal hands were mostly tendon and bone now, apparently they did not function properly anymore. 

And according to the wildly oscillating mental impressions she was getting from the woman, neither did her mind. 

As she approached, she could see the Dark energies radiating outwards from the small body, various waves of pain, hatred, and anger struck her and bounced away and out into the air with no significant effect. Pity and sadness tugged in her heart as she approached the place where Project III hung against the frozen stones.

“Prrrooojjjeccttt IVVV… Hhhowww iss ittt thhattt yyyouuu haavvve reeetttaiiinnedd yoourr bbbeaauuutty, aaaftterr wwwhaaattt tttheeyyy ddiiid too yyyouuu.” came the hissing, raspy voice from the impaled woman’s smoke-scalded windpipe. 

Project IV approached the diminutive woman and screwed up her lips in disgust at the pungent burnt-flesh odor, and the terrible sight of the Dark Force-user as she hung, dying. Her once-proud body was now pinned and helpless, like an insect impaled to a specimen board. 

Her glittering eyes narrowed at the odd question, given the other woman’s dire circumstances. “I do not recall what was done to me, nor how I survived… however, at the moment I am far more interested in what has happened to you. Who did this? Was it Project II?” 

Project III cackled hatefully, the sound creaking raw and painful from within her burnt lungs. “Youuu – _cough_ \- wwwwillll fiiinnnd ouuuuttt, preettyyy giirrrlll.” The blackened bones of her hands twitched out some oddly uncoordinated, nervous movements as her penetrating, insane eyes flicked randomly and burned deep into those of the other woman. 

With a sudden groan, Project III squirmed and writhed her head, arms, and chest in agony against the shining steel object embedded in her middle. Thin, black writing edged the steel; however its words were buried deep into the small woman’s abdomen and blood. She panted a few times, then looked up to the taller woman with an odd mix of genuine pain... and greatly anticipated delight and... _some twisted type of glee_? “Ppppleeasseee ppullll… thhiiisss… ouuuttt off… mee…” she begged, with all the convincing tone of a wire snare.

Sensing a trap of an unknown type, Project IV mentally recalculated before moving another muscle. The most recent look of weird anticipation and pleasure that Project III had thrown her was not one she had expected… something was wrong… and her constantly twitching upper body was the clue. 

With a slow, gentle movement, the standing woman touched the tip of her right lightsaber to the small, dying female’s left leg in a spot where she couldn’t see her make the final contact of blade to skin… The hateful, pinned lady glared daggers through her but did not move or flinch at all, even as the saber lightly scorched her flesh.

Project III, it would seem… could not feel or move her legs.

She retracted the humming red saber immediately upon the diagnosis as she eyed the silver steel object with the careful eyes of a wary predator. The hateful steel shard had been bent backward in a wide U-shape to ensure that any escape would not be easy. It had pierced into the small woman’s body just above her middle but slightly to the left, and below anything truly vital like her heart, lungs, or aortic artery. The deadly injury had however completely paralyzed her from the site of the steel shard downwards… the paralysis had proven that Project III’s spinal cord had been severed. 

Someone extremely cruel and highly knowledgeable of basic anatomy had pinned her there in that manner quite purposefully; it was a way that would hold her in one spot, disable her from escaping, and be fatal… yet it would not allow her to die easily or quickly. The pain that the top half of her body was receiving would fuel her powers in the Dark side of the Force for days, or months even, without food or water, while her unfeeling lower half would leave her unable to get very far from this particular spot.

This was without a doubt Project II’s work – the hateful Imperial research scientist who had so coveted the Emperor’s powers, that he had covertly injected himself with infusions of the powerful Sith’s blood.

Project IV recoiled in disgust at the sight of the fellow research subject’s life so callously used and soon to be lost, as mere bait for a trap for herself. _But where was the trap itself – and Project II - if Project III was the bait?_

Project IV replaced the saber at her right side, but kept her left one out and at the ready as she snatched with her right hand at the head of the pinned woman. Her simmering anger peaked hot at the gory show that Project II had left purposefully for her to find. “SHOW ME ALL THAT YOU KNOW, NOW!!” she shouted in a commanding voice.

Project III howled hatefully, and locked her surprisingly strong yet mostly carbonized hands around the taller woman’s wrists in a desperate attempt to wrench them away. Project IV was simply too strong, and held her grip around the other woman’s pale, slightly charred forehead. She focused down hard into the thick forest of fleeting, dissociative thoughts as the insane woman swore various curses through her raw, bleeding windpipe and lungs.

A blaze of images and emotions filled her mind; memories of burning metal, twisted flesh, wild confusion, escape… and finally the random, fleeting images centered upon the tall, white haired, gold-and-red eyed visage of Project II. His gaunt face was sunken in somewhat like a slender skull, his pale skin as thin as tissue paper, and his delicately arched, almost noble eyebrows that were placed above a round set of glasses under a neatly drawn ponytail of silver-white hair. 

She recalled the moment when Project II had approached the half-feral, mad woman that was Project III, and had used his powers to give her back a modicum of sanity once more. The sensation of wordless madness turned back to something resembling human thought was a unique one; and she focused down deep into the more normal-type memories that lay within that part of her mynock’s nest of a mind.

Her laser-focused mind fished around in the other woman’s stew of more recent and decidedly more intelligible experiences, looking for any sign of their future plans, when suddenly, the memories of Project II and III's most recent conversation sprang into her mind. She skipped around their words until she hit upon a fascinating sentence: _‘She loves... The man who carries the traitor’s blood?’_

... _Kylo Ren._

She gasped in horror at the realization of Project II's grand scheme laid out in the insane woman's mind...

Project II was going to come after Kylo in order to exact the Emperor’s revenge against Darth Vader and the Skywalker lineage, before making his grand move against the First Order... and Project III’s mortally-injured life had served as a mere distraction for her while Project II completed his task, the details of which he had not chosen to reveal to the dying, mentally fragile woman who was now called Project III.

A sharp, sudden penetrating pain stuck into both sides of Project IV’s ribs at the horrifying revelation, causing her to gasp for air and collapse into a heap. The cackling, hoarse wheeze of Project III came to her ears as she crudely broke off the mental connection to the other woman’s mind. Her once clear, raptorial eyes swiveled up, suddenly delirious and groggy…

“Yyyyouuu… arrre prrreettty… bbuttt sso… ssstttuupppidd…”

As the world went dark and unstable around her, the furious form of Project IV drew herself from the snow one final time, and with a defiant snarl, jabbed the hissing red lightsaber in her left hand up into Project III’s mouth to the shining hilt and into her spongy brains; the ruby-colored plasma-blade scorching a pathway through her insane, hate-filled neurons and into blessed silence. 

The last thing she saw before unconsciousness took her away was a clear syringe tip held tightly in each of Project III’s charred, skeletal hands, their mostly emptied chambers still oozing with the ominous remnants of a faintly glowing green liquid. The snow crunched loudly behind her back, as she folded back onto her heels and down into the bitter cold. 

Darkness enveloped her once more. 

  
\-----------------------------------------v^v^v^v^v^v^-----------------------------------------

Kylo Ren awoke with a start in one of the back rooms of the research building; his gold-flecked, deep brown eyes frantically searching in all directions for an answer to something that he couldn’t comprehend.

_Silence._

Completely bone-chilling, echoing silence. He couldn’t hear her mind or even sense her presence anymore. The powerful Force-sensitive young man reached out as far as he could, desperately trying to feel for her or any signs of danger… As if in response, an icy burn of flame suddenly trickled down his spine and into the soles of his large feet as horrible emotions bled into him from parts unknown.

_Exposed, isolated, vulnerable, prey._

Kylo suddenly felt as if he was being watched with hateful, vicious eyes from all of the corners of the Galaxy at once. Something was definitely coming... _for him_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, fuckity-fuck-fuck.


	15. System Failure

Kylo Ren ran a single large hand through his sweat soaked black locks, as primal terror coursed cold streams of ice through his veins. Something terrible had happened to the woman called ‘Project IV’ while he had slept off the relaxing after-effects from their little encounter aboard the Command Shuttle, but in addition to the sudden silencing of her entire being, the impending sense of something bearing down on him filled his mind with unspeakable dread. 

Something that oozed blinding hatred and ridiculous amounts of raw power lurked just on the edges of his senses... and whatever that something out there was wanted him specifically very, very dead for reasons that he could not fathom.

The young Commander grabbed his helmet and lightsaber, popping them onto his head and hip respectively as he flung himself out of the tiny room that he had chosen to rest in. His breathing increased dramatically as he half-ran down the halls; he needed to gather everyone up and head for the Command Shuttle, NOW. 

General Brendol Hux and Captain Phasma sat at opposite ends of the main research area; Hux was lightly snoozing with his hat pushed down over his face with one hand tucked under his chin for support, and Phasma was talking to three of her Stormtoopers, one of which was laughing at something that had just been said by another. Both of the remaining researchers were busy at their consoles; the young man looked somewhat more concerned than the other, and kept hitting one key over and over as if it wasn’t working right, while the older, fatter man pushed his glasses up once again and continued lazily typing.

Kylo Ren burst into the room in a flurry of black fluttery fabric and widely thrown arms. “Everyone please follow me. We have to evacuate this planet immediately. We are in extreme danger at the moment.” His words translated through the vocorder in his mask had lost much of the young Force-user’s panic, but none of his dominance or power. 

Captain Phasma and her Stormtroopers all abruptly stood up tall and nodded as they gathered into a tightly organized squad; they knew if something had rankled someone as strong as Commander Ren this badly, that it was something to not question, but instead to take incredibly seriously. 

General Hux snorted himself back into the world of the awake as his black hat tumbled from his head and onto the gray carpeted floor, revealing his shiny, regulation-straight fiery red hair. With a grunt of annoyance, he snatched the cap from the floor and stood up as he carefully dusted it off. “Ren, what is the meaning of this outburst?”

The black-clad Commander was not interested in the slightest with butting heads with the General… time was of the essence. “General Hux, if you value the lives of any of the people in this room today, then you will immediately begin boarding the Command Shuttle.” 

Hux replaced his hat with a tidy shift of his hands before snapping them to his sides with obvious annoyance. “Really Ren, what has gotten into you? Do we look like we are in danger? We have an entire squad of Phasma’s best trained and most senior Stormtroopers here, myself…’ - and at this, Hux produced a small blaster pistol that he kept concealed in his right coat pocket to show that he was armed and ready for action if need be – ‘…yourself, and… that strange woman of yours with the yellow eyes, whatever her name was.” 

Kylo shook his head angrily as he began marching across the entry doors. “Something has happened to her. She’s not responding to me anymore.” His teeth gritted in self-hatred for being so weak as to sleep while she was battling who-knew-what out there last night in the mountains.

The ginger-haired General rubbed his smooth, freckled forehead in exasperation. “What exactly has happened to her?” He hated the half-truths and omissions that Dark Force-users seemed to like to tell him so often in order to get their way without question. For that matter, while he didn’t hate Kylo Ren per se, he could never approve of or understand the First Order’s upper echelons’ obsession with Force-sensitive people anyways. 

To the matter-of-fact man that was Brendol Hux, they were all petulant, insubordinate wild cannons who seemed to cause just as many problems as they solved… and among the worst of them was the one and only Kylo Ren, the dark destroyer of many a computer console.

Phasma decided that waiting for Ren to answer Hux was a moment too long for her battle-sharpened sense of time, and took charge. “Everyone, follow me. Researchers, save your files and upload your data to your backup drives immediately. Troopers, take those crates along the far wall into the Shuttle and then assist the research crew with their evacuation in any way that you can.” 

Hux turned to the Captain and sighed loudly in exasperation, before giving Ren a well-warranted, bright blue stink-eye. “Very well. Ren, I will expect a full, detailed report from you regarding whatever has caused us to up and evacuate a perfectly good source of over forty years of Imperial science data based entirely on your mystical concerns.” 

Kylo was already out the door and heading towards the Command Shuttle before he could acknowledge Hux’s little admonishment. 

The brief moment of pink morning sun had already given way to a drizzly, foggy mess that enveloped the world; the dense cloud cover cloaked the jet black upper wings of the Command Shuttle in a hazy mist. White armored men and women darted furiously around, some carrying crates, some carrying stacks of paper, and two others were shoving the remaining two researchers up into the long loading ramp of the Shuttle in an impressively short amount of time.

Kylo Ren stomped out into the fog and reached nervously into the mist-shrouded world with the Force, his mind desperate for an update on either Project IV or the unknown threat source. At the moment, nothing of either could be found.

Not a trace of the malevolent signature that wanted him dead, no hint of the woman somewhere on the icy mountainside. The Commander cursed and kicked at a small pine cone, sending it sailing off into the forest with a soft clatter of disturbed leaves. 

_He had really sensed that terrible, predatory being closing in on him… Right?_

Just then, Kylo saw a dark grey object coalesce from the mists, about a hundred meters out from the Command Shuttle to the north. The object loped slowly, awkwardly, and became a human figure. The Dark Force-user reached out with his senses and his open hand – nothing. He could sense absolutely nothing from the being. _A void_. 

Phasma’s keen militarily-honed senses had noticed the approaching being too, and shouted an alarm to her men, who immediately raced to her side and expertly shouldered their weapons. Hux ordered the cowering researchers to take cover well inside the shuttle, and he stood guard with his silver blaster in hand at the mouth of the entry ramp, just behind the cadre of white-armored troopers.

Kylo Ren squared his shoulders up and summoned all of his imposing demeanor into his abdomen as he ignited his snarling, snapping red lightsaber with a flick of his right hand. “Identify yourself, and approach no further! You have entered a restricted area under the control of the First Order!”

The single distant figure suddenly split out into the fog from one, to seven… to twelve… to thirty-one. All of them moved with a similarly strange gait, as if all of their limbs were not functioning perfectly. As if they were all toys being controlled by the same unseen puppet-master. 

The march of the void-mind puppets halted, now some fifty meters out. Some of them appeared gaunt and had trouble maintaining verticality. Others wobbled on their limbs as if they were running out of energy. Yet others were clearly missing hands, heads, feet, or had massive holes torn clearly through their torsos.

Kylo swallowed a large lump in his throat as he recognized the white and grey uniforms of several of them. He suddenly realized who and what these beings were…

The figures clad in white and grey were the lost First Order researchers… and the others were the remains of the original research team and the abandoned, starved Force-sensitive research subjects from the Galactic Empire. 

And they were all to a one… _dead_. 

Yet somehow, these long dead men and women moved once more, their corpses upright and driven through an unknown method of animation. 

A male voice, commanding and imperious, boomed out over the silent fog. “The First Order… _is no more._ ”

At his words, the corpses all raised various styles of blasters up high and proceeded to rain down an absolutely withering hail of laser blasts in a deafening barrage of multi-colored gunfire.

Kylo Ren raised his left hand in fury, summoning all the strength of the Force to his fingertips to form a massive shield. His face scrunched tightly… he realized that his energy was stretched too thin, as his efforts merely slowed, not stopped the blaster fire. If the bolts had been but one or two, he could have stopped them entirely, but there were so many in the air… and so many more were coming every fraction of a second. His broad shoulders shook and braced against the bolts he held back with his wide, unseen shield. It was like trying to hold back a fuel explosion with a thin plate of steel.

Kylo screamed out as he threw his lightsaber to the ground and put both of his black-gloved hands up to reinforce the shield as the laser bolt barrage increased in volume. His teeth ground hard against themselves as the salt-tang of sweat rolled down his forehead and into his open mouth beneath his heavy black helmet. “GO… YOU NEED TO LEAVE NOW!!!” he shouted desperately to Phasma, who in horror realized what the Dark Force-user was about to have to do. 

The Captain shouted to her men, who grabbed a stunned looking General Hux as they swiftly piled into the Command Shuttle and fired up the powerful twin-ion engines with a roar. 

The first few bolts from the blaster barrage had begun to creep close enough to singe the fabric from Kylo’s hands, legs, and chest, just as he heard the Shuttle hiss upwards into the air behind him. He breathed a deep sigh of relief as he heard the sonic boom of the craft rising safely away... and then he dropped to his knees and released the Force shields, except for a small area right around himself. 

A moment later, the forest and part of the building behind him echoed with the deafening hailstorm of hundreds of simultaneously released laser fire blasts. The terrible sound of the trunks of great pine trees being torn asunder, heavy cinder block work being blasted apart, and metal crying against the bolts of heat filled his shaking bones to the core.

Kylo could hear the unnaturally mistimed footsteps of the dead approaching as the blaster firestorm continued unabated; the number of bolts he was holding back from his body were beginning to outpace his shield’s ability to remain intact.

The young Commander swallowed back his fears. _So this was how he would die_. At least the Captain and the General had escaped, he thought with a smile. That this moment would be his final stand was somehow simultaneously both calming and deeply horrifying, as he neared the upper limits of how much more damage his Force-shield could hold out against…

Just as he mentally prepared himself for the explosive end, he felt a surge of Dark energy pour into himself from somewhere unknown. Electrifying and energizing, the raw power coursed like gold fire through his veins. Kylo snapped himself upright to his feet, his dying shield now many times amplified up from what it was before. Anger, rage, and passion pumped into his mind as he raised his tightly corded, rigidly stiff hands forward… 

The army of the dead burst into blue fire and splintered bone as bolts of electricity flew from his fingertips in a spectacular display of the raw power of Dark Side of the Force. Kylo shouted with twisted pleasure at the sight, his senses impossibly heightened with an almost euphoric sense of invulnerability as his enemies literally exploded outwards into ash and cinders before him. 

The clatter of flesh and melted metal pieces rained down against the ground as Kylo called off the sizzling bolts of power from his slightly burned hands. The sharp smell of burnt bone and ozone permeated the cool air, as the young-Force user panted hatefully. His pupils were drawn tight and feral beneath his black and silver mask. “WHERE ARE YOU!! SHOW YOUR SELF, COWARD!!!” he snarled hatefully into the now silent mist, at the unseen controller of the mangled bodies of the dead. 

A soft clapping sound echoed through the forest, as a single male figure approached with a smooth, confident gait. His long silver ponytail drooped nearly down to his slim waistline as he walked, his shoes glittering black beneath his grey cloaked form in the dim light of the misty dawn. “Well done, well done. You fought well for someone so weak in the Force, Ben Organa-Solo. Or should I say more precisely, that your Master did.” 

Kylo hissed and drew his hands threateningly up towards the figure, his arms fully prepared to unleash another volley of lightning at the insulting name.

The man smirked cruelly as he peered with red-and-gold eyes over his round glasses. “Don’t flatter yourself over you having destroying my puppets with your puppet, Project IV. If you have him so much as fire a single joule of static electricity towards me, I’ll break him in half right now before your eyes.” 

Kylo suddenly felt the flaring bright presence of the woman called Project IV inside his mind, stronger than it had ever been before. He could feel her open his mouth, work the muscles of his jaws, and speak her words out with his voice. “You will do no such thing, Project II. Face me with your own strength, and I will kill you with my own hands and not with a proxy.” 

The tall silver haired man laughed cruelly as he adjusted the thin cloak around his broad shoulders. “I am not as stupid as you think, woman. I know for a fact in spite of your blustering that you cannot even move right now. The poison that Project III injected you with is a rather long acting tetrodotoxin that acts upon the special neural pathways of Force-sensitive individuals. I compounded it especially for you… Frankly, you should be quite flattered that I expended such an effort just for you. And now, you will lay there in the snow and watch me blow your pretty little traitor apart piece by piece, before I go up there and finish you off for good.”

Kylo’s mind reeled in horror at the revelation of what had become of Project IV as the woman continued speaking through his mouth. “If I have to, I will kill you even with his hands. You grossly underestimate the abilities of the grandchild of Darth Vader, nearly as much as you have underestimated me.” 

Project II sneered coldly and snorted a hateful laugh. “You cannot speak to me about underestimation, for you foolishly underestimate your very Master.” 

The tall man bowed semi low to Kylo, who remained taut and stock still with both hands held forward. “Me and you, we are similar but different. We have control over different unique aspects of our Master’s powers. You? You my dear, possess and utilize his incredible strength with the Dark Side of the Force, and you use his powers to penetrate the minds of others to gain knowledge and understanding for your own benefit. Me? I possess his grand desire to rule, to control all worlds without question, and his ability to strike fear into the hearts of men across the Galaxy.” 

He grinned as he slicked a few stray hairs back from around his temples, before holding up a single slender finger upward into the air. “You are indeed powerful, Project IV, of that there can be no question. But power is a negotiable, fickle thing, for it can be taken from others by those with greater desire to possess it than those who currently have it... of course, this process is made considerably easier with the application of proper motivational techniques."

The tall man's skull-like face curled into a sinister smirk as he gestured widely with a single pale, upraised hand. "Fear is an excellent motivator, Project IV. Would you like to see it?"

Kylo Ren swallowed a tight knot in his throat when he suddenly heard the Force-bond speaking inside of him as loudly and as clearly, as if it were his own internal thought monologue that was being overridden.

 _'Don't let him rattle you, Kylo. He is full of lies... Fear _is_ his only power. Do not feed it, it will only make him stronger. Focus on your anger, your hatred of him... it will center you and make you into a weapon of unimaginable power.'_ came the booming, yet perfectly calm voice of Project IV inside his mind.

Project II shook his head and pointed to the sky. "No... I **do** believe that you most definitely will require a demonstration of my powers. Do you really think that fear is the only power that I possess? How small-minded for one of your bearing." His pale, slender hand waved dismissively. "Ahh, but there is but one single, rather unique skill of his that we both share. And that one ability that we both have is his power to command the men who are under his influence over ANY distance.” 

Suddenly, the research building complex itself burst into a wide explosion of green laser fire and stone. Kylo Ren threw both of his hands up to shield himself from the massive blast.

When the dust settled, Kylo quickly surveyed the damage. Where once had stood several buildings, the sundered ground now held a kilometer wide, smoking, hissing crater of molten rock and soil. His mouth fell open as his dark eyes trailed up to follow a thin green contrail through the burned out fog and cloud cover that extended up into the heavens…

The blast had impossibly come from the _Finalizer_ itself. 

Somehow, Project II had taken control of the mighty Resurgence-class Star Destroyer… and it was now aiming all of its immense ion cannons and countless banks of turbolasers directly at Kylo Ren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit has OFFICIALLY hit the fan... and the ceiling, and the walls, and the couch, and all across the overly nosy neighbor kid who happened to open the front door at the wrong moment without asking.


	16. Recalibration

_Fear._

Abject, blood-chilling, bone-rattling fear coursed through Kylo Ren’s veins as the odor of upturned soil and ozone met his nostrils from the smoking hole that was once the research facility.

And that was exactly the emotion that fed the man called Project II.

Kylo's pulse sounded in his still ringing ears. Sweat poured down from his chest and forehead, soaking his clothes. The piercing raptorial gaze of the yellow and red eyes of Project II burned twin pits into the young man’s mind. Death was imminent, and there would be no fleeing from it... not with the cannons of the mighty _Finalizer_ aimed at your head. His opponent had only to press a button, and the young Force-user's entire existence would be vaporized to ashes.

_‘KYLO, STOP. YOU MUST LISTEN TO ME. FOCUS ON YOUR ANGER, YOU MUST DO THIS. YOUR FEAR IS MAKING HIM STRONGER!’_

Kylo did not respond. Only the wordless black terror like that of a trapped, fragile animal bled through the connection. Even his breathing was shuddering and erratic.

Project II was focusing the strength of his abilities down hard onto the mind of the tall young man, in order to suppress Project IV’s ability to retaliate or act against him… and at the moment, it was working.

With his chances of survival falling every millisecond, Project IV realized that her chances of reaching Kylo through mere talk was likely not going to reach him in time to save him, as his entire higher brain function was being suppressed by his natural fear response to the explosion, which in turn was being enhanced into a stupefying effect by Project II's powers. Worst of all, Kylo's powerful fear emotions were being compounded and multiplied exponentially by the fact that he knew that Project II possessed control of the _Finalizer’s_ massive armies and its deadly cannon arrays... And that they were going to be used on him if he so much as moved a muscle.

She felt around through the young man’s mind, desperately searching for anything to knock him out of his artificially induced stupor… when she felt a faint ripple in the Force call to her from the great Star Destroyer itself through Kylo’s delicate Force-sensitivities.

Focusing her efforts into discovering the source of the slight disturbance in the Force between Kylo’s quivering breaths, she reached up and out to the source, high above the ground… and found herself being called above the planet to the mind of none other than General Brendol Hux.

The General stood at the helm of the massive weapons control panel of the _Finalizer_ , with tears brimming in his eyes and pale hands shaking. The dim flash of blinking red and green indicator lights reflected on the glistening sweat that ran profusely down his forehead and cheeks.

The young man who stood with his hands locked onto the cold steel of the console was wracked with absolute terror... and a tiny fraction of blinding hate and rage. He absolutely hated what he had just been forced to do... and it had been this tiny bit of emotion that had attracted the Dark energies of the woman far below on the planet.

Beside him, the bodies of most of the command team lay strewn about on the mirror-smooth black floor, deep red blood still pooling around the splayed arms and legs of the loyal First Order men and women that he served with and loved so dearly. The elegant silver blaster on the weapons console was still steaming hot from when he had fired it and ended their lives.

Project IV felt her heart unexpectedly burn with grief and sadness, as she moved her energy to the shaking, tumultuous form of General Hux. She gently enveloped his hands and arms into the disembodied essence of herself.

The young man stiffened, feeling the weird, foreign influence seeping deep into his skin and flesh. An involuntary breath sucked into his lungs as he reeled back a step from the dizzying, horrifying sensation of being infiltrated by the Force for the first time.

 _‘I won’t hurt you… you must let me in.’_ she spoke into his trembling mind. Her voice – although it had been purposefully quieted to avoid inciting more fear to an already unsettled soul - still echoed with terrifying volume inside the head of a young man who had never before felt the presence of the Force within himself. 

Hux’s lower lip shook as he responded to her inside of his own mind. _‘You… aren’t him. You are Kylo’s friend.’_

Project IV’s dark demeanor lightened softly at his words. _‘You could say that.’_ Her voice continued, her words purposefully made soothing and velvety soft on her invisible tongue. _’But for right now, I want you to know that I won’t hurt you… please don’t be afraid. You have to trust me and let go of your fear._ ‘ 

A wide tuft of shining red hair atop his forehead bobbed slightly as he nodded, the slight head movement caused a single fat tear to collect and roll hot down his sweat-cooled cheek. _‘I believe you._ ’ 

His chest heaved as grief suddenly overtook his terror and pushed it aside. ‘ _I didn’t want to do any of this… why did he make me kill them. They didn’t do anything to him… Please… You have to help me. Don’t let him make me kill another one of my men.’_

She felt a fat lump choke hot in his throat.

The tendons knotted in his slender, ivory colored fingers. _‘I would rather you kill me than let him do that.’_ Another tear tumbled down and clung to his jaw for a moment, before breaking free to the console below.

The emotion that filled the young General was no longer hate, fear, or anger... It was _passion_. The single most powerful of the signature emotions of the Dark Side, passion was the one emotion that was impossible to force another to possess, for true passion came only from within. Project IV's dark essence drank from the depths of the young General's deep passion for his men, like fuel poured onto a fire.

The wordless Force-essence of the distant woman pulsed with increasing magnitude deep within the bones of Brendol, her energy now radiating impossibly high levels of roiling power. _‘I won’t let him do that. I promise you... but you must trust me_.’ As the thoughts left her mind and bled over into that of the young man, suddenly, forged from the fires of his own passion and hammered into form by her amplifying power, a tiny fragment of hope burst into existence. 

Hux nodded once more as his pale clenched hands slowly pulled themselves back from the controls of the firing mechanism and down to his sides, where they drew themselves up into tight fists. Two more slick tears slid from his icy-steel eyes, and into his neat black collar, staining the fabric an even darker shade. " _Thank... you._ " Hux whispered aloud.

A moment later, the form of General Hux slowly sank and collapsed onto the floor, his mind blank as he was drawn into the steady thrum of dreamless unconsciousness. 

Project IV retracted her mind from the now inert body of General Hux, and rejoined the rest of herself down on the planet and into the still fear-wracked head of Kylo Ren. What had felt to her like a half hour of moving between the minds of the two young men, had actually occurred in the merest fraction of a second. 

Her newly empowered energy pulsed deep within Kylo’s body, in an attempt show him what she knew and felt in order to break his terror-frozen state. ‘ _Kylo, Project II is lying to you. He doesn’t control all of the people on the Finalizer at all, it was only Hux, and I’ve taken care of him. It will be alright… but you have to trust me._ ’ 

A flicker of sudden cognition flashed through the fear-blanked mind of the young man. His brain had reacted to the tiny ember of hope within her energy, which she had brought down with her from General Hux and placed like a candle into Kylo's darkness. 

_‘I… trust you._ ’

Kylo’s terrified mind gently reached out with fragile fingers to the invading force of the young woman’s energy, and touched it once more. The nightmare-curtain pulled back, revealing the blinding light of reality...

Project II stood but a meter away, his long, slender fingers resting on the hilt of Kylo’s still crackling lightsaber as he had begun to take the weapon out of his opponent’s unmoving hand. 

Suddenly, a terrible fire ignited in the heart of the Commander, spurring his fingers to lock tightly around his weapon. His head snapped up to the surprised, wide-eyed skull-face of Project II, as he pulled the keening blade of red up and into the other man’s right arm, severing it at the elbow with a hiss of burning flesh and bones. 

Project II howled in pain and clutched at his missing limb, his fingers stained with powdered, cauterized blood and ash from where the lightsaber had carbonized his skin and muscle fibers. His glistening yellow and red eyes flew open with terror of his own at the resurgent presence of his fierce opponent, who visibly radiated with roiling hate and anger. 

Kylo Ren rushed forward with a terrible shout, swinging his screaming saber as the older man ducked beneath the wide crimson arc. Project II rolled back up onto his feet as the tall, black-clad young man drew back and swung again, barely missing his slim chest but scoring his grey cloak slightly. 

The slender, grey-cloaked man sneered hatefully, as he figured out that his other puppet aboard the Finalizer was no longer under his control, when he signaled him to fire the main ion cannon once more and nothing happened. At this new revelation, he chose instead to draw his left hand out towards Kylo. A thunderous violet colored blast emerged from the hateful man's fist and hit the young Force-user hard dead center mass with a bolt of dark energy.

The heavy body of Kylo Ren spun around up and backwards before landing fifteen meters away with his feet flung high into the air and his now deactivated saber just out of arms reach. For a moment, Kylo kept his eyes tightly closed as he strained to resist the sirens’ song of unconsciousness and the blinding pain in the base of his lungs.

Project II spat viciously, as he continued to clutch the stub of his severed right arm into the basket formed by his curved, skeletal fingertips. “INSOLENT BASTARD! HOW DID YOU… _ARRGHH_!!” The slim, skull-faced man drew up his thin lips into a tightly pursed sneer before turning on his heel and fleeing off into the dense, enveloping fog and the forest.

A brief moment of recovery later, Kylo Ren sat up in the cool, silent forest, and looked around in stunned surprise. Project II it seemed… had vanished without a trace. 

Kylo climbed to his feet and picked up his lightsaber hilt, replacing it to his hip. ‘ _Are you still there? I think he’s gone now. I can't feel his presence anymore_.’ 

Project IV responded, her voice relaxed with a soft sigh. ‘ _He’s not gone, but has merely retreated. He’ll be back and we’ll still have to deal with him, but on another day. Right now though, I need you to come find me_.’ 

Her energy signature darkened slightly as Kylo realized that she was suffering greatly, and had been hiding it from him the entire time in order to keep him focused and strong in battle. ‘ _That bastard wasn’t lying when he said that I can’t move… I’m stuck out here on the side of a mountain, completely paralyzed from head to toes from that damned poison he had me injected with_.’

Kylo gritted his teeth in anger at the thought of the beautiful young woman lying helpless and suffering from paralysis. He looked around for a few brief moments as he combed his brain for ideas, before he noticed the small silver transport shuttle that Captain Phasma and her troops must have arrived in, about a half a kilometer out. The tiny craft sat on a distant landing pad that was only now visible since the research building and some of the surrounding forest had been vaporized. 

A wide smile broke across his face, beneath his heavy black and steel helmet. ‘ _Show me where you are… I’ll be on the way in a few moments_.’

With a soft, pained chuckle, the young woman smiled back. ' _You have no idea how good it feels to hear your voice again, Kylo. I really thought I lost you there for a little while.'_

A bloom of gentle heat washed over the angular cheeks of the handsome young man, hidden deep beneath his mask. _'I know.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ancient Star Wars traditional hand-sacrifice requirements have been fulfilled. The dark gods are satisfied... for _now_.
> 
> PS: HAHA I MADE YOU ALL FEEL BAD FOR HUX!


	17. Reboot From Secondary Drive

The steady droning of beeps, boops, and blinking green lights kept Project IV in a half-alert state of annoyed awakedness. Her breathing had finally started remaining steady and even again under her own control, as the hateful effects of Project II’s tetrodotoxin had begun to wane from her paralyzed muscles.

Safely back aboard the _Finalizer_ and back in the medical bay once more, Project IV lay still in the soft bed of her private, droidless ICU suite, her eyes unblinking and her body rigid and unmoving... and her mind, simply furious. Of all of the fates that could have befallen her, the indignity of being reduced to an inefficient, living statue who was entirely dependent upon the care of others was up there among some of the worst of them. 

It wasn’t all that bad however; Kylo Ren had been in near constant attention to her throughout the last seven days since their encounter with Project II. He frequently mentally updated her on any new findings and of the ongoing minutia of his day in an almost obsessive manner… it was almost as if he was afraid to give her peace and quiet for fear he would lose her again. The young Commander had even started sleeping on a small couch that he had had brought into her suite so he could remain at her side while he forced himself to handle a few miserable hours of sleep.

She knew that he only meant well by it; even though he was a grown man, Kylo Ren was still very emotionally innocent and definitely not in familiar territory in regards to romantic attachments. He was just simply not used to having someone around that he cared so much about, let alone felt something as strongly as love for, so he went about navigating the unknown in the only way that he knew how… which of course, was to go completely overboard to the point of obnoxiousness with it.

Brendol Hux on the other hand, had become quite the different person within the last week. He had insisted upon personally helping Ren unload her from the troop transport shuttle that he had brought her aboard on, and had gone out of his way to ensure that the injured woman was treated with the highest levels of care and expertise. 

Apparently at some point after she had freed him from the hateful grasp of Project II’s control, she had become the new favorite member of his ‘crew’, in his mind. Even Kylo Ren’s presence didn’t seem to rankle him as much as usual. Being forced by an evil entity to murder your own crew mates takes a bit of the edge off of a man… even one as uptight as General Hux, she guessed with an internal grin. 

Just then, the connection between herself and the mind of Kylo Ren lit up brightly. 

Before his deep, resonant voice ever popped into her head, she could tell that he was greatly excited over something. Again. 

‘ _Are you awake_?’

She rolled her eyes internally, her external face still an impassive mask of neutrally frozen features. ‘ _As I have been for the past several hours. This room is the worst room for trying to sleep in. I’m about to go mad in here, Kylo._ ’

Kylo’s tone softened. ‘ _Then you are in luck. One of the researchers has found what he believes to be the antidote to your poison in one of the old drives we brought back. He’s compounding the serum for you right now… do you feel like letting him try it? We can’t really test it out first, since it would require another Force-sensitive person to serve as a test subject, and the only other one here is me… and it would require him to inject me first with the toxin…_ ’

Project IV growled. It was the deal with the devil you know, versus one with the devil you don’t. ‘ _Shall I remain here in this damnable helpless state for who knows how long, or let myself become a test subject for the second time in my life… especially since the first time worked out oh-so-well for me? When is a choice not a choice at all?_ ’ She thought to herself, but still allowing Kylo to overhear it.

The young Commander frowned sourly inside his helmet. To him, it felt almost as if she was harshly turning down a gift that he had chosen especially for her. ‘ _I thought you might appreciate this, and jump at the chance to walk again_.’

‘ _There’s a lot worse things that could happen to me other than losing the ability to walk if that serum goes wrong_.’ she sighed. 

Kylo unconsciously drew himself up taller as he stomped along the far end of the _Finalizer_ , at the opposite side of the ship from the medical bay. ‘ _Then I will have him synthesize the poison and then try treating me with the serum_.’

Project IV sighed deeply inside Kylo’s mind, as if he had just said the stupidest possible thing. ‘ _Don’t be a damned fool, Kylo. I’ll not have you end up in the same position as me_.’

‘ _If it will help you, I will do it. I am constantly reminded by you day and night about how much you loathe being so helpless_.’ Kylo snapped back, his mood slipping and heading south again. Suddenly, a surprising amount of affection seeped back through the Force-bond from the increasingly angry young man as he spoke. ‘ _I won’t let you stop me if I decide to go through with this_.’ 

‘ _Goddamn you, Kylo_.’ she hissed in response as she resigned herself to fate. 

Kylo Ren said nothing, but his suddenly uncharacteristically sunny emotional response spoke volumes. He knew he had won this round. 

The rotund older researcher with the gray ponytail and glasses arrived an hour later, with a young blonde female assistant, Kylo Ren, the dark-haired lead medic officer, and General Hux. In his wide hands he carried a small straw-colored ampoule of liquid and a clear glass tube of dark green powdery residue. 

The researcher instructed the medic to set up a saline IV drip system with two pumps, as he activated the serum by combining the liquid with the powder. He drew the resulting mixture into two different 3ml syringes, and handed one to the medic. With a quick countdown, he and the medic timed their injections into each IV port as Project IV’s heartrate went to the moon in post-traumatic terror, as a former recipient of many such past ‘medical experiments’. 

She couldn’t remember why the hell she had let Kylo guilt her into this, that manipulative bastard, this was all his fault... 

Kylo sensed her panicking and removed the glove of his right hand as he touched the bare, warm fingertips of her left hand. He wordlessly sent a large amount of apologies, comfort, and other emotional responses intended to soothe her through their direct skin-to-skin contact.

‘ _Damn you. Quit being so nice to me. I don’t like it_.’ she hissed with an internal frown… that suddenly quirked up on her external lips. 

Kylo noticed the minor muscle movement of her lips at the same moment that she made it, and he turned his helmeted head fractionally in surprise. 

The medic saw the Commander’s odd head tilt as well, and recognizing that the keen-eyed Dark Force-user must’ve seen something interesting just then, darted over to shine a bright light into her unblinking yellow-toned eyes. The black pupils contracted deeply – he pulled the light away – then expanded widely… which was then followed up by a quick series of blinks. ‘We’ve got the autonomous blink response back!’ the medic shouted with wide-mouthed glee. 

Three hours and another dose of the synthesized serum later, most of the major muscle groups on the young woman’s body was under her control once more. She could sit up in bed, speak, turn her head, and lift her arms. Her legs, hips, and the fine muscle movements of her hands still did not work properly, and she remained in a generally weakened state.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's a two for one special! Chapter 17 is a short filler to keep you updated on the poisoning situation with Project IV, while Chapter 18 is a headline event that you all paid the price of admission for. 
> 
> _YOUR SHIELDS CANNOT REPEL SMUT AND FLUFF OF THIS MAGNITUDE!!_


	18. Launch Safe Mode

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW: Smut n' fluff special on the grill today... serving it up Kylo-style!

Given the improvements in her condition, Kylo demanded that the woman known as Project IV be released from the room of obnoxious lights and beeps so that she could rest and heal properly. After a brief and rather boring discussion of potential medical complications with the lead medic, she was allowed to be transported via hoverchair back to Kylo’s dimly lit bedroom.

Within the privacy of his room at last, Kylo removed his black and silver helmet and sat down carefully at the end of his wide bed. He pushed his raven-black hair away from his porcelain pale nose and cheeks, before turning to view the young woman, who sat up curiously on his soft mattress. 

She could feel conflicting emotions bubbling within the tall, handsome young man, and he was expending a lot of energy to hide the truth of it from her. He felt like a dam that was well over capacity and that was about to overflow all over the bedroom.

"Something is troubling you, Kylo. Tell me.” Project IV said as she pursed her plump pink lips.

Kylo nervously tugged off his leather gloves and placed them one over the other on his black-clad right knee. He steadfastly refused to look at her as he spoke. “You don’t like it when I show you how much I care for you. It makes you uncomfortable.”

Project IV snapped her head back in shock and confusion. “I... “ she stammered as she rubbed her still slightly numb arms with open, mostly non-functional hands. She didn’t know how to respond to that. It was true, she hated how much he doted on her and constantly pestered her with mental contact over the Force-bond. But she _did_ love him… _so why then did she hate his affection so much_?

Kylo kept his eyes fixed on the floor as he shuffled his large feet awkwardly. “I know that I’m not the easiest person in the Galaxy to get along with. I’m not as powerful as you, or my grandfather. I’m kind of used to being alone in the world, so it’s hard for me to know exactly when to back off or to know when I’m being too… _persistent_.”

He sighed deeply, sending a resigned puff of air outwards. “If you don’t love me and don't want to be with me, I can understand. I won’t hold it against you. You can still stay in my room if you would like to recover here, though.” 

The young woman couldn’t believe what she was hearing. _He actually thought she didn't love him because his overly clingy affections annoyed the crap out of her?_ She moved forward on the bed to get closer to the tormented young man, when suddenly her numbed legs collapsed under her, sending her face first into the sheets with a flop. 

Kylo flipped around and immediately helped her back up to a seated position, as he carefully arranged her limp legs beneath her. As he lifted her up, he noticed that her face was screwed up in an odd mix of embarrassment, amusement, and frustration. 

His deep, beautiful golden-brown eyes were shining pools of sorrow and concern, the edges of his lids tinged with red. He obviously had been stewing about this issue for some time, and yet had somehow kept it from her via their mental connection very well. 

For a few moments, the young woman simply stared into his velvety-soft eyes, allowing herself to be lost in his honest, soulful gaze. She swallowed hard before averting her frightening, raptorial-yellow ones.

A timid sigh escaped her lips. “I… I don’t like being weak and helpless, Kylo. Weak people are broken and destroyed by the strong…. Like how I once was. I refuse to let myself be broken and vulnerable again.” She slapped out at her limp legs in sudden fury. “This… this has not been an easy ordeal for me. It reminds me of how far I can still fall. I hate being dependent on other people.”

She slowly tipped her head up to face Kylo. He was still very clearly upset, and chewed his pink lower lip nervously as he watched her speaking. “The love you have for me makes me feel uncomfortable because it exposes the weakness inside of me, the part of me that can still be hurt. I’m afraid of letting you or anyone else into that part of me.”

Kylo lowered his face slightly and bunched his eyebrows up together in genuine concern as he met her gaze. “You have nothing to be afraid of from me. You can look inside and see all of me at any time, and know that I mean that.”

The young woman blew a shimmering tuft of hair away from her face and turned away again. “No, not this me... That one is not afraid. I mean the _original_ me. Whoever she was, she was weak inside and afraid, and some part of her still exists and lurks inside of me. Before I was changed into what I am now, I was a naïve, stupid, trusting child. I don’t ever want to let myself turn back into the woman who was so scared, trusting, and weak that she was shattered into oblivion by other people.” The young woman snarled angrily. "I hate her for her stupidity and for her weakness."

The young commander nodded, his curled ebony locks bouncing slightly at his broad shoulders. “I understand completely. I hated the weak and foolish person I was before I became what I am too. It is a little different for me though, because I chose to become what I am today.” 

Kylo placed his hand under her jaw and slowly turned her face to meet his. Her sharp, gold eyes glittered in the dim, silvery light as she stared into his dark orbs. “But I’m also not afraid anymore of showing you my real self, the weak side of me that I tried to destroy… the part of me they once called Ben Solo.”

Kylo swallowed as he ran his fingers through her hair, feeling the warmth of her scalp and the silkiness of her long tresses. His piercing, gentle eyes never left hers as he leaned in to press his tender lips to hers in a feather-light kiss. 

Her eyes closed slowly, allowing the soothing expression of the young man’s love tingling in the kiss on the sensitive skin of her mouth. She could feel how deeply he cared for her as he moved his plush lips delicately against hers. His gentle kiss was not needy or lusty, just overflowing with honesty and tenderness that flowed directly from his heart.

Suddenly it dawned on her while he continued his kiss; in spite of the fact that they had made terrifyingly violent, and sadistic love, and had had several extremely sexual encounters via their Force-bond before, that she had actually never let her guard down enough to _kiss_ him before. Pressed now against the handsome young Commander’s lips, she felt vulnerable, exposed, raw. _Weak._

Tears built in the creases of her eyes, and trickled down her soft, smooth cheeks and onto Kylo’s pink-flushed ivory skin. His wide brown eyes flew open at the unexpected sensation of hot liquid against his face, and the young man snatched his head back to see what was wrong. 

The broken, powerful, terrifying woman known to him only as Project IV, now sat before him on his bed with hot silvery tears streaming down her face from her tightly closed eyes.

Kylo lunged forward and took her small body into his arms, drawing her tightly against himself in a mighty hug. He buried his large face deeply into the crook of her neck and held her there, allowing her tears to dampen his luxuriously soft black hair. Her breathing stuttered slightly as she sniffled quietly, and he increased the strength of his embrace in response. 

He trailed his long slender fingers through her hair, feeling the shapes of her bones and the muscles of her back and shoulders through her cascade of shimmering locks. The young man’s heart pounded deep in his chest; the steady thrum of the organic machine still audible under his many layers of fabric, skin, muscle, and bone.

She felt the tip of his nose and lips trail along her long neck, a tender skin on skin contact that sent a burst of wildfire racing throughout her core. The beautiful young woman had never allowed someone to touch her so intimately, and she had always forced her intimacies with Kylo. It was just simply what she knew that she liked; power, control, dominance… but it would appear that she liked this as well.

Her body shuddered as she felt the warm hands of the gentle young man trail against her soft arms as he lifted and removed the thin, loose nightshirt that she had worn in the medical bay. The tender, sensitive pads of his fingertips grazed over her exposed body, exploring and feeling all of the places that had heretofore been forbidden to him before. 

Slowly, she felt him lower her back down to the bed and into the silken black sheets, his hands taking a moment to carefully unfold her limp, lifeless legs beneath her into a comfortable position. She heard the furious rustling and stretching of fabric, and after a moment she finally opened her eyes to see Kylo’s porcelain torso looming above her, his pale skin glowing like moonlight in the dim light. 

Hundreds of tiny dark freckles and moles spattered his skin like distant planetary systems, and as much as she wanted to trace little connections between them, she knew her fingers were not working at a fine enough capacity for that task at the moment. Instead, she laid back and admired the physical beauty of the handsome young man who remained just above her, perched upon a pair of slender, but heavily muscled forearms.

His expressive, chiseled face read like an open book; she could not recall ever having another person look at her with such a sincere expression of actual love. His cheeks were flushed slightly pink, but his eyes held no cruelty, none of the animalistic physical need that she had seen before from him during their previous sexual encounters; at the moment, he bore the unshielded look of a man who gazed now upon what his heart and soul most desired. 

And the honesty of the love in his gaze absolutely took her breath away.

Kylo swallowed a lump in his throat as he leaned down against her, carefully shifting the placement of the weight of his body as to not compress her too greatly, but still allow her to feel him covering and shielding her from the world. He ran his hands up to her hairline and then back down to her loose drawstring pants, before loosening them up and proceeding to pull them down to her feet in one long move.

The cool air of the room pulled gooseflesh from several points on her fully exposed body, but anywhere the bumps occurred, Kylo carefully smoothed them down with his warm, gentle hands. 

She had never considered the young Master of the Knights of Ren to be a particularly sensitive person, and it had never occurred to her that perhaps his preferred style of physical affection was actually much more gentle and romantic than her own violent, pain-oriented style. She stifled a moment of embarrassment for having been so cruel to him in the past, as it seemed more than likely that he would have preferred his first sexual encounter to have been something quite a bit more like this moment, rather than being thrown across the room or beat and bloodied into screaming, crying submission.

Kylo’s face drew into a soft smile as he read her line of thought through the Force-bond. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed… I liked that too, even though I was scared out of my mind at first. I do like it when you are in charge of me.” He ran his large right hand across her forehead and turned her head gently to one side in order to tuck his face into her neck again. Hot breaths tickled the sensitive skin and fine hairs at the nape of her neck, causing even more gooseflesh to rise up on her arms and legs. “… _but I am beginning to get the feeling that you like to feel me being in charge of you sometimes, too_.”

The soft, wet feeling of his broad tongue ran from the base of her neck and up behind one ear, sending electricity down into her toes. Kylo felt her shudder beneath him, and involuntarily pressed himself against her hips in a sensual, grinding movement. The hard bulge between his legs strained tight against the clasps on his leather pants and into the smooth skin of her thighs. “This… _this is what you do to me_.” As if to further drive the point home, he pushed his hardness against her once more in one long, languid thrust; his deep voice was liquid velvet that he whispered into her ear, while he mouthed her soft earlobe between his plump lips. "You drive me absolutely _wild_."

Lava blazed inside her core, raging hot from her jaws down to the tendons of her toes, and pooling straight between her thighs in a lake of liquid fire. She whimpered under the heavy weight of the young man atop her, feeling her skin shift as he took her slender wrists into his large hands and held them tightly. He pressed the thumbs of both hands into her palms and traced little circles against the smooth skin there, as he ground his clothed hips hard against her naked flesh again. 

Her once terrifying, hawkish eyes were now wide with desire; she felt weak and vulnerable in his arms, and she wanted him to finish drawing her into himself, in order to feel his passions at full strength from deep within his handsome, beautiful body. 

Kylo moved his face so that he was directly above her, shielding her eyes in the shadow of his face for a moment before leaning down to press her lips into his for another tender kiss. This time however, some of the gentleness had been lost; his mouth opened and the tip of his rough tongue slipped between his smooth lips and into hers. 

For a moment, she was bewildered by the intrusion of his tongue against her teeth, but she chose to welcome him in a moment later by parting open her mouth, and allowing him to drive deeper within to meet the tip of her warm tongue. His back arched with desire as he pushed against her tongue, and she pushed back against his with as much force as she could muster.

His need grew with the furious battle of their thick tongues going on within both of their mouths. While they kissed, Kylo quietly lifted himself up from the bed with his knees and worked the clasps loose on the front of his pants before sliding the remainder of his clothing down to his feet and off onto the floor. 

When the young man lowered himself down once more, his now free manhood pressed its warm, sensitive skin against her cool thighs, sending a shudder of pleasure down her skin and back. He slipped a hand down into the warmth between her legs, and gently massaged the entire region with his wide, smooth fingertips. A hushed moan escaped her lips, as he worked the delicate skin several times, taking care to read her reactions through the Force-bond to make sure that she was enjoying it as well. Her toes stretched and retracted in an involuntary movement as he rolled a particularly sensitive spot; indeed she was.

Kylo swallowed and ground himself against her thigh a few tentative times, before whispering to her through their bond. ‘ _If you don’t want me to do this now, I won’t. I really want to, REALLY want to do this… but I won’t make you if you aren’t feeling up to it._ ’

With the sloppy movements of hands that weren’t in full control of themselves yet, the young woman slipped a hand down between his legs and softly squeezed his thick shaft a couple of times. His wide, lust-soaked gaze met with hers as he swallowed coarsely. _‘I’m going to take that to mean that you are.’_

A soft smile found its way to her pearl-pink lips as she spoke directly into his mind. ‘ _You better believe I am_.’

Kylo carefully lifted her legs apart and arranged their limp forms into a comfortable position before pressing the hot, slick tip of his length up to her entrance. He inhaled deeply, and gently pushed the thick width of his manhood up inside her warm, wet core, until he reached physical resistance at the very end.

The tall young man gave a few shaky thrusts to settle the both of them into the new junction of bodies, before giving a long, heavy press of himself inside her. Her head rolled back as she moaned out a soft, low note that pricked at his primal instincts. He responded by pressing deep again, nearly pulling out, before driving himself deeper into her core than he had before. She squeaked from his effort, which ignited the fire in his veins. He thrust deep inside of her, hard enough to slide her back a few inches on the bed, with much more force and speed than before. And he drew back and did it again. And again.

Her partially unworking hands crudely gripped his broad, square shoulders as he pumped himself into her with increasing speed and fury. His breaths came in ragged grunts, squeezed out between thrusts. His long black hair swung back and forth above her head, slinging sweat around like rainwater as the tight muscles of his back coiled and relaxed in a beautiful rhythm. 

The pink plush lips of the handsome young man was parted and slicked with saliva; she watched with detached pleasure as occasionally his soft lower lip would withdraw behind his white upper teeth, only to appear again a moment later renewed with a fresh layer of shining wetness. The small body of the young woman wriggled up to his bobbing head to take his slick lower lip into her teeth and tug on it gently with a slight sucking movement of her mouth and lips. 

The unexpected pleasurable sensation against his mouth caused him to nearly lose control as he arched his back and plunged bruisingly deep inside of her, which in turn caused her to cry out in pain. The sound of her pained noise set him off again, triggering a deep primal response inside his genetic makeup, which caused him to cry out and thrust even harder against her. 

What had once been a tender, gentle ordeal had now become a brutal affair, complete with teeth, fingernails, and violence. 

Kylo mercilessly slammed into her over and over again at full force, causing her to grip the long black hair on his head with the nails of both of her injured hands and scream his name into his face. His breath became stuttered and ragged with intensity as sweat slicked his entire body. Heat boiled into steam just beneath their skin; it was easy to imagine the bedsheets themselves igniting in the firestorm the pair had worked up.

She twisted her face around and up under his tightly corded, smooth throat to bite him hard at the base of his jaws on his neck, which caused him to scream and rage even harder against her. Her eyes screwed tight in pleasure as he hammered her as hard and as fast as he could; his entire life’s purpose was apparently now focused into smashing her beautiful body into liquidity beneath his fury. 

Suddenly, the world flared white hot and she clenched into a gut-rending climax; all she could hear was the sound of her own pulse, Kylo’s primal cries, and the melded sound of both of their ragged breaths. As her body crunched itself into the pulsing throes of orgasm, the furious young man arched himself up and forward as he found his explosive release deep inside of her. His arm and chest muscles quivered involuntarily under his porcelain skin, as he pumped the last of his sticky mess up into the young woman’s pleasure-wracked body. Sweat rolled down from his face and onto her breasts for a few moments, before he collapsed, sliding down her curved abdomen and onto the bed in an exhausted heap. 

Silence now filled the once riotous room; two pairs of deeply panting breaths were the only sounds that could be heard. 

A few minutes later, Kylo’s long, slender fingers wriggled their way across the black silken sheets to take her small hand into his large one. He gave a reassuring squeeze, and then turned his reddened, sweat-soaked face over towards hers with a wide, slightly toothy, gentle smile. “ _I love you_.”

The equally sweat-slicked, beautiful young woman rolled her head over to face that of her dark-eyed, handsome lover. For a moment, the entire Galaxy was still, and at peace with itself. No war, no light, and no dark; only two people remained, a man and a woman, joined at the hand. 

_“I love you too_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BlackGoshawk ProTip: Don't think you are gonna shag yourself a Dark Sider and think you are going to be able to walk normally the next day, even if he seems really sweet at first.


	19. Quarantine Needed

After a couple of blessed, beep-and-boop free hours of well-needed rest and recuperation, a new mechanical annoyance broke the silence. The tightly entangled mass of warm bodies on Kylo Ren’s black silken sheets finally began to stir and break apart, desperate to quell the annoying droning sound of a gently vibrating machine somewhere in the room. 

Kylo flopped off to one side, fumbling with a single long outstretched arm towards one of his silver bedstands in the darkened room, the sensitive pads of his fingers searching for the source of the vibrations. Suddenly he reached the obnoxiously buzzing plastic and metal pad and held it up before his face, his eyes still closed and bleary from the awakening. “H… hello?” he mumbled almost incoherently into his First Order communications pad. 

General Brendol Hux’s voice piped in over the com pad, his tone somewhat nervous. “Ren, I’m quite sorry to have to disturb you in your quarters, but an emergency meeting is being called to order in Conference Room #7. Your attendance is very much required, as is Project IV’s. Phasma has reported a recent series of very disturbing incidents among some of her troopers… specifically the group that accompanied us into the research facility.” 

Kylo sobered out of his sleep drunken state almost immediately. “ _Disturbing incidents?_ ” he frowned as he raised a single dark eyebrow. 

Hux nodded, the lines of deep worry plainly visible on his pale face even over the dimly-lit, low resolution com pad. “Yes. However, I… I have some concerns about sharing what we know over the com system at the moment. I’ll elaborate in person once you arrive. Hux out.”

Kylo shook his head in grim agreement. “We’ll be up momentarily. Ren and IV out.”

Project IV was as soberingly awake as Kylo by the time he turned back around to face her. Her brilliant hair stuck out in all different directions from where he had been cuddled up in her long, shimmering tresses. The look of stern apprehensiveness that was stretched across her soft face combined with her frazzled bed-head was an amusing dichotomy, and Kylo would have indulged himself a loud burst of laughter at the sight had he not been so alarmed by the reason for Hux’s call.

Kylo tipped his head towards the straight-lipped, razor-eyed woman. “Project II?” 

She nodded, her features drawing up even tighter than before. “Without a doubt.”

The tall young Commander smoothed his hair back into its normal level of wavy, curly perfection as he chewed his bottom lip nervously. “Even though we broke orbit from the planet nearly a week ago, and are halfway across the Galaxy from him, he is still able to affect Phasma’s team of Stormtroopers?”

Project IV flicked her piercing gold and faintly red tinged eyes towards the soft gold and brown eyes of her handsome bedmate. “There is NO distance from which you are safe from someone who possesses the reach of the Emperor. The man controlled _legions_ and _dictated the outcomes of battles_ with his _mind_. There is no place to hide, no place to run, from that level of power. Project II is not as strong as the Emperor, nor myself, but he is still far more powerful than he should be.”

Her countenance grew hard and steely as she continued. “As I have said before, we will HAVE to face him again, or he will only grow and strengthen as he begins to figure out how to amass more power to destroy anyone who opposes him.” 

Kylo’s mouth pursed tightly. “Do… do you possess these powers as well?” It seemed somehow incompressible for one being to have so much power, especially when that being sat small, naked and slightly bedraggled from her earlier romantic adventures with him a few hours prior.

The young woman began to run her fingers loosely through her hair in an attempt to smooth her ruffled appearance. “Yes… _I do_.” She sighed almost resentfully, as if she did not like discussing exactly what the extent of her powers were. In truth, she was indeed worried that explaining just how different she was from the man before her would cause him to see her as too different from himself, something… inhuman. “Like Project II, my powers are just beginning to emerge. If I so wished, I could control everyone on this ship in the same crude way that he does, with fear and manipulation.”

She bit her lower lip under her upper teeth. “But I don’t want to do that. I’ve seen what fear can do, to both myself and to others, and I will not make your men into unwilling slaves as I once was. The Emperor himself ruled the Empire with fear and loyalty in the hearts of his men, but they still possessed free will. He didn’t have to twist their minds into slavery to make them follow him, they followed him because they believed in his power and what he could do for the Galaxy.” 

Kylo swallowed coarsely. “For _the Galaxy_ ’?” 

Project IV smiled gently, but her dark aura pulsed visibly in the dim light. “Of course. He meant to bring order to chaos, to bring rule to the lawless, to bring peace through strength... by _ruling_ the Galaxy as its one true leader. This was what the Emperor most desired in life, and it is what he still wants most in death.”

The young Commander looked almost afraid, which caused Project IV to frown. She had overshared, and the grand vision that she had revealed had frightened him slightly. 

Kylo looked deep into her eyes with his dark orbs of soft velvet. “Is this… is that… what you really want though?”

Project IV sat back for a moment in shock. She had never really thought about what she wanted before. Her internal mental programming and the Emperor’s transforming influence was so strong within her that the concept had never occurred to her… What did SHE really want? Did she even want to rule the Galaxy, even if she was capable of doing so? Since at some point she would later be forced to literally become the Emperor as his will slowly grew within her, the entire issue was really a moot point. _Or was it?_

Kylo sensed the troubled words and emotions blazing through her neural pathways over the Force-bond. He knew she didn’t have an answer, but he wanted to light the spark of thought for her to think over. Whatever she chose, he wanted it to be what she wanted, and not just what she was forced to do… and whatever road she chose to follow, so would he. 

In response to his question, he simply rubbed her slightly cool hands with his large, warm ones for a few moments, before getting up to put his clothes on.

The tall young man stepped out of his bedroom, his arm linked around the black clad form of the smaller body of Project IV. Her legs were still wobbly and she occasionally rolled her ankles in or outwards at random intervals, but she was now capable of bearing weight on both of them. He had offered to load her onto a hoverchair or carry her, but she had declined of course.

The pair entered the conference room with a hushed silence from the already seated occupants. Virtually the entire contingent of First Order brass on board the _Finalizer_ had been assembled, and they now all stared with similar looks of terror, disgust, or confusion at the two Dark Force-users standing in the entryway. 

Project IV flicked her powerful senses over the group, reading their minds without being detected. 

‘ _She’s one of **them** , those Dark Side freaks. Don’t look at her weird eyes, or she’ll melt the skin right off your face._’

‘ _I bet she’s the cause. If she wasn’t, then why doesn’t she help us instead of laying around watching our men tear each other apart_?’

‘ _Wow, she’s beautiful. I’d love to get me a piece of that ass… Ugh, but I bet she’s fucking that weird-looking Commander Ren guy. Well, I guess tap that once for me, pal. Damn._ ’

‘ _Imperial artifacts and bones should have been left buried in the past. Hmph. I was against this from the very start and now look at us… an entire army of cowering, simpering fools. There is a **reason** that the Emperor is dead_.’

‘ _I never told you how grateful I am for what you did for me that day. Thank you_.’

At the last thought, the young woman cocked her head over to the externally emotionless face of General Hux, who stood at the far end of the table with his hands crossed over his back before a wide, inactive display panel. His expression gave no clue to what was going on in his mind, but the hard stare of his piercing ice-blue eyes said it all.

She focused hard back onto his mind as a slight smile crossed her pearl-pink lips. ‘ _You are welcome… but you have my most sincere sympathies. I am terribly sorry that I didn’t catch what was happening a few moments earlier, perhaps I could have stopped it from happening_.’ 

Hux’s lower lip trembled slightly, almost imperceptibly even if one had been staring directly at it. ‘ _Thank you… as… as do I. However, we cannot dwell on ‘what might have beens’… we can only work to prevent more men from falling prey to his sinister powers_.’ He drew his weak lip tightly into his mouth and stood straighter to attention. ‘ _I sincerely thank you for coming, especially in light of your present condition_.’

Kylo tipped his helmeted head fractionally, he was only catching Project IV’s side of the conversation through their Force-bond, and he couldn’t tell exactly whom the other end was connected to. His eyes swiveled curiously around the room, looking to identify the other person with whom she was having such an intensely emotional mental communication with… and then he saw Hux’s intensely blue eyes burning directly into those of the young woman who stood beside him. 

He _immediately_ bristled with jealousy. 

Project IV flipped her eyes up to meet the underside of Kylo’s helmet as she sat down, motioning through the bond for Kylo to sit in the leather chair beside her. ‘ _Kylo, he’s being formal. He’s upset over the deaths of his men, not flirting with me. You can stand down, soldier_.’ A soothing pulse of affection bled from her into him through their linked arms and through their bond. 

Kylo slumped slightly in embarrassment, but his jealous streak still burned unabated as one of the officers took a role call and went over the meeting rules and speaking agenda. ‘ _I... I am sorry. Its just… Amongst the women and some of the men of the First Order, Hux is thought of as one of if not THE most attractive male on board. I’ve overheard one too many lewd thoughts about him during my years aboard to believe that you are somehow immune to the qualities that have attracted so many others_.’ 

The external smile on the young woman’s face couldn’t be suppressed anymore. ‘ _Hux only is thought so highly of because you always wear that damnable helmet. They’re scared of you because you look like Death’s very own personal lampshade in that thing_.’ Her mirth only increased as Kylo’s emotions burned hotter. 

However, instead of indulging her usual sadistic desires to poke cruelly at the socially awkward young man for her own amusement, she suddenly recalled how gentle he had been with her earlier, and decided to try being kind in return to calm him. ‘ _I guess should be grateful for that bucket of yours, I guess..._ ’ She felt through the bond… still angry, no curiosity detected. Not enough niceness yet. _Launching salvo two._ ‘… _Because if you suddenly started taking your helmet off in public, I’d be kicked off the ship for caving in the damnable skulls of those who wanted to have you for their own_.’ 

A quick sensor sweep of the young Commander’s mind - nope, still jealous and angry. He was actually quite upset; even his teeth were grinding quietly under his breathing. _Too close for missiles, switching to guns now._ Her already smiling lips curled up into an uncharacteristically toothy grin. ‘ _You are the first man that I’ve ever seen that could be adequately described as ‘beautiful’. I could watch your bare ass, deep brown eyes, or count your little freckles for hours_.’ 

Instead of taking it as a compliment, Kylo bitterly hissed… she could read through their connection that he was interpreting her honest praise as sarcasm. Her look soured - _extreme mission failure. Abort, abort!_ She patted his hand reassuringly, her eyebrows raised in silent surprise. ‘ _You think I am messing with you. You… seriously don’t see yourself as a physically attractive man, do you?_ ’ 

Kylo scowled as he scrunched his hands into tight fists. ‘ _No, I do not. Look at my face and you’ll see why I hide it… my scoundrel father must have somehow chosen the most exaggerated features that he could to give to me in order to torment me throughout my life. So frankly, NO, you wouldn’t have to worry even if I did start running around without my helmet on. Nobody, and I do mean NOBODY, has ever thought I was attractive before you got here_.’ He crossed his long black-clad arms and sank deeper into his seat with a huff. ‘ _And I know. Trust me, I’ve listened to every mean thing that anyone has ever said about me here_.’

Project IV locked eyes hard with him as another officer droned on about additional security details at the head of the room, as she turned Kylo’s helmeted head to face her with the Force. She scanned his memories and looked back into his early childhood days; he was definitely right about one thing. His father was absolutely where he had received his nose, lips and ears from... His own physical appearance and the features of his face that most resembled those of his father was indeed a deep source of torment for him, and the root of his jealousy issues. 

However, there _was_ something else that attracted the young woman's interest… That big goofy nose, those deep hazel eyes, that obnoxiously charming toothy smile, that cocksure swagger on tall, long legs… She swiftly pawed through his mind, picking at Kylo’s earliest images of his father. She had seen a quick glimpse of him in Kylo’s mind at a much older age when he had taught him to pilot various types of spacecraft, but she hadn’t really looked any harder at the man other than a quick passing glance through his son's eyes. But now, after spending a bit more time studying his appearance and looking backwards into the young Knight's earliest memories, he seemed _familiar_. In fact, even when Kylo was an infant, he had still looked so much older than he did way back when… 

This time a lightning bolt struck her hard and she gasped out loud, frightening the officer to her left into shifting his chair away from her as if she had tried to bite him. 

She **had** known that man, long _before_ he was Kylo’s father... and she had _**loved**_ him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, fuck-a-doodle, this little revelation of hers is sure to go over like a lead fucking balloon with Kylo, huh. :/
> 
> PS: CLEARED 50k+ WORDS, SHIT YEAH LETS HAVE A DRUNKEN POOL-NOODLE LIGHTSABER FIGHT IN CELEBRATION, READERS!


	20. Unxpected Exception

Kylo Ren was a lot of things. Sullen, quick-tempered, socially awkward, powerful – but stupid, he was not. 

He had heard precisely everything that she had thought of just a moment before, and he had witnessed the sudden lightning strike of recollection jolt her brain into remembering something forgotten. He had also seen enough in her eyes to put two and two together to make the truth. 

_Project IV… his lover… and his father… Han Solo…_

The young Commander glared daggers of ice through his helmet and into the wide-eyed, slack jawed face of the young woman known only to the world as Project IV. Her mouth cycled up as if to close, but then fell down again slightly in continued, horrified surprise.

_So it WAS true what he had seen in her mind..._

Without saying a single word, Kylo put his hands on the table, stood up and marched out, leaving the poor First Order officer stammering over his trailing words as he continued droning on about additional security details.

General Hux shot Project IV a look of intense concern and slight embarrassment from his place at the front of the large, oval conference table. ‘ _Is he… alright?_ ’ he thought at her. 

She peered at him with pinprick-wild, terror-struck eyes that looked as if they’d just seen a ghost for the first time. ‘ _…I… had no idea... that **he** was his…_ ’ she stammered out into the General’s mind.

Hux drew his lips up. ‘ _Wh… what? Just what the hell does that… **never mind**. I just need you to get Ren back here, now. The Security Council is going to have us go back to the planet along with another two Star Destroyers and raze it to the ground in order to find and eliminate Project II. I need him to-_ ‘

Project IV looked up at him, her pinned gold eyes still lost in an ocean of impossible horror. ‘ _…Kylo… isn’t interested in what I have to say to him anymore… I… I’ve lost him..._ ’

The ginger-haired General rubbed his head in frustration. ‘ _Look. I don’t care to know what happened between you two in the past few minutes. All I know is that I need you here, and since you can hardly walk, you will get to stay here.'_ He sighed again and lowered his head.‘ _Tell me where Ren is and I’ll bring him back_.’

General Hux stormed out of Conference Room #7 and out into the main hall of the _Finalizer_ ’s command wing. As he headed generally in the direction where Project IV had told him to go, he could smell burnt metal and hear the snarling, crackling saber as it crashed into something heavy.

As he rounded the corner, his eyes caught exactly what he had expected to see; Kylo Ren, making an ass out of himself and tearing up an entire wall of grey command and control modules. He was keening nearly incomprehensible expletives as he swung his murderous red saber directly into the heart of a heavy electrical conduit, sending sparks of metal and electricity sailing in all directions.

Hux swallowed as he quietly approached the tall black-clad Commander. Nobody else, perhaps save for Project IV herself, would dare approach Kylo Ren while he was in the midst of such a tempestuous, violent tantrum aside from Brendol Hux. 

“KYLO REN!” he shouted in fury. “STOP THIS NONSENSE IMMEDIATELY AND RETURN TO THE CONFERENCE ROOM!” 

Kylo stopped momentarily, his chest heaving angrily like an asthmatic Rathtar. “DID _**SHE**_ TELL YOU WHERE TO FIND ME?!” 

Hux snarled back as he snapped an arm upwards into the air with an audible crack of taut fabric. “Only after I demanded that she did!” The smaller man straightened himself up, and smoothed the arms of his large gray greatcoat out. 

The Dark Force-user faced away from Hux and the destroyed durasteel consoles, his panting breaths still ragged in his lungs. “SHE TELLS YOU THINGS… SHE BUT FAILED TO TELL ME _ANYTHING…_ ”

The red-haired young General swung his arms out widely. “I don’t give a good God-damn about this _lover’s quarrel_ between you two! I need YOU to get back into THAT room to advise those officers on what course of action they should take, before they put any more of my men in harm’s way!” 

The tall Commander hissed through his vocorder. “ _LOVERS_ …” The words burned like acid on his tongue. “SHE DIDN’T TELL YOU… WHAT IT WAS THAT SHE…”

“ _What?_ You want for me to tell you what I did? Want for me to tell you about something I did fifteen years before you were even _born_? Yeah, yeah I did. I had a one-night stand with a man that broke my heart. Is _that_ what you wanted me to tell you?” came a soft, broken voice from along the wall, just behind Hux. 

Hux turned slowly around to see Project IV, dragging herself on limp, rubbery legs along the wall behind him. Her eyes were fixed firmly on the quaking form of Kylo Ren.

Tears built up in her predatory yellow-colored eyes. Her lips curled back hatefully, as her once small voice suddenly built itself up into a ball of rage and fury. “When exactly did you want me to tell you? Was it in the two seconds before or the one second after that I realized that a random man that I’d fucked in my all-but-entirely forgotten youth was the man who would later become your fucking _father_? Oh but wait, that couldn’t be it… because you fucking stormed out on me before I could say even a single word to explain myself!!”

Hux spluttered quietly, his once fiery words lost in the woman’s bizarre admission to a guilt of the highest order. This was a conversation that he ever so desperately did NOT want to be privy to, let alone find himself stuck literally in the middle of. 

He quietly swallowed an awkward lump in his throat as he walked back towards the Conference Room, whispering quietly to both of them as he passed. “Ahh…. I… I’ll tell them to expect you… towards the end of the meeting.” He couldn’t even stomach to bring his ice-blue eyes up to make contact with Project IV as he passed.

As soon as Hux turned the corner and his footsteps disappeared, Kylo seethed a few silent moments as he ground his teeth into shards of glass. Suddenly, he growled a few hateful words under his breath as he continued facing the wall. “ _You. Fucked. My. **Father**_. I can’t even LOOK at you anymore.”

Project IV snarled and raised her hands in a violent thrashing movement, which lifted Kylo Ren up and around in the air before her, before smashing him down to the floor before her small feet with a resoundingly loud crash of flesh and metal. The small female body radiated visible waves of black, echoing energy that warped the air around her for a solid five meters in all directions as her breathing grew deep, irregular, and rapid. Lightning crackled in random locations around her, singeing black forks and cryptic electrical whorl patterns permanently onto the durasteel floor panels.

Kylo fought her control violently, and jerked himself into several random directions as he desperately tried to break her hold on him. He cursed and spat out at her and into the air, which ran down the inside of his helmet and back onto his own lips. But it was no use; he was trapped at waist height from the ground onto his large knees. Tears burned hot and hateful down his face beneath his helmet, soaking his high fabric collar.

The young woman calmed her fury just enough to not rip the Master of the Knights of Ren into a thousand tiny fragments. She drew air into her lungs and steeled herself into a tensed state where she could reliably reach over to his helmet, activate the release mechanisms, and push it up and over his head and onto the floor below without removing his skull with it.

Wordless hate streamed from the once-gentle brown eyes of the handsome young man before her. His soft pink lips were drawn into a bone-stiff quivering straight line, and his jaws were clenched in tooth-breaking fury. “ _Nothing… you can ever say… or do… will fix **this** , you **whore**._ ” he hissed out bitterly from beneath his bunched up features.

Project IV said nothing, and grasped the sides of his head hard, screwing her fingers halfway into his skull as she literally forced the connection to re-ignite between their minds. 

Images flowed from her mind to his...

_A young girl on a humid, tropical planet laughed her way through a crowd of people seated at small tables… a restaurant? No – bright music and dancing, eccentric peoples. A cantina. In her hands, she held a wide brown platter with several dirty, clinking silver glasses atop it – she was obviously a server or waitress of some sort. Her radiant smile electrified the room, as she flitted amongst her patrons._

_A tall young man with hazel eyes, a swath of soft brown hair, and who hours earlier had been swaggering around flashing far too much money in his pockets, had drank himself nearly into unconsciousness. He was a regular at the cantina who always flirted openly with the serving girl, but who otherwise never caused too much trouble... Except occasionally at the sabacc tables._

_That night, he ordered another drink, just before suddenly falling from his chair and knocking himself out on the corner of a table. Red blood ran down the top of his head onto the wooden floor. Several people crowded around, heartlessly picking his pockets as he slowly bled out._

_The serving-girl had a beefy alien bartender shoo off the flock of thieves before carrying off the young man back to the live-in staff quarters, where he then was dropped onto a dingy bed. She then proceeded to doctor his wounds with a sewing needle, disinfectants, and medicinal salves, before falling asleep on the cool floor._

_Sometime during the night, the young man awoke, and found his savior asleep on the floor. In his drunken stupor, he fell off of his bed and woke her up. He told her she was beautiful, and proceeded to launch immediately into his well-honed lines of seduction on her… she had no concept of anything like this, as she was innocent in the ways of men._

_She believed him when he told her she was the center of the Galaxy. She believed him when he kissed her, and told her that he would treat her like royalty. She believed him when he said he would love her like none other and that she would enjoy what pleasures he could give to her._

_The young girl thought she’d found her prince, like in the old tales grandmothers told to children at night. She fell instantly in love with him, his cockiness, his sarcastic sense of humor, and his range of handsome physical features; his distinctive large nose, sweet smile, soft hair, gentle tanned hands..._

_The rest of that night, she spent her time deep in the arms of the handsome drunken young man, who, in perhaps what was his only moment of honesty, proceeded to make quite good on his promise for her to enjoy herself, as he proceeded to make passionate love with the young woman several times that night._

_The next morning, she awoke naked and cold on the floor. Both him, and his ship, and his ‘love’ for her was gone._

_She never saw him again._

Project IV unscrewed her fingertips from Kylo’s skull, and released her hold in the Force on him. She allowed her sad, tear-stained eyes to meet with those of the now equally heartbroken young man, before speaking in a hushed, soft tone. “I loved him… but he did not love me. He took advantage of my innocence, and threw me away. To him I was but one of many before, and many after. However, that night I gave him what I could only give to one man, and it meant nothing to him.”

She stood up and leaned against the wall for support as her eyes tipped skyward. All of her anger had disappeared, replaced now by a chilled, hollow sadness. “I didn’t make myself live two lives. If the world had gone on the way it was supposed to, in your eyes I’d be old enough to be your mother or grandmother. But the universe isn’t that way, at least not for me it is not. I am instead forced by fate to live the days of my youth again, in a second life with people half my age, and in a time when I should have been growing old and frail.” 

Her head rolled against her thick mat of hair, to meet her hollow, aquiline eyes with his again. “If the universe was as it should be, I would have never met and loved you.” She soberly locked his tearful gaze, and forced him to look deep within her. “If you wish it to be so once again, I will leave you to it.”

Kylo screwed up his face into a pained scowl a moment before he burst into loud, wailing tears. “FUUUUCCCKK!!” he roared as he clutched at the sides of his head. “WHY HIM!?! FUUUUUCCCKKK!!” He pounded the floor with his large fists, denting the metal in several places before leaning forward on all fours to sob and curse loudly. "WHY HIM!? _WHHYYY_!!?" he bellowed like a madman into the echoing halls.

Project IV gave no response to his raw emotional display, and clutched her hands around her ribs tightly. A moment later, she turned away and guided herself along with wall with her delicate right hand for stability.

She paused several meters away, and glanced back over her left shoulder. “If I could do it all over again, I would have done things differently. Had I known you when I was young, I would have given my first love to you instead, and not to him."

Her bitterness drew up into a soft smile as she turned away one final time. "... But time only flows one way, Ben Solo. It never… ever... _looks back_...”

She walked away, dragging herself down the dimly lit, steel-grey hall. Her long, silken black cloak floated behind her like the remnants of a dark dream.

Slowly, she reached the Conference Room, and opened the doors wide with the Force. Darkness rose around her legs as she used it to stabilize herself into standing upright in one spot. The First Order officers within the room cowered in fear from her; her once faintly yellow eyes were now a harsh, brilliant gold, tinged with red. The once merely unusual woman now radiated cold, bleak desolation and death; she had become a living void in the darkness. 

She lifted her head to face the frightened men and women in the room, before focusing hard on the blue eyes that sat in the now terror-stricken, pale face of Brendol Hux.

As her chest rose and fell in a deep pattern, her once sadistic fires lay extinguished, but her countenance remained equally nightmarish as the blood ran frozen and glacially cold in her veins. "Do not sacrifice your legions for one man, General. Send me alone to the planet’s surface, on a single ship piloted by its computer. You will then leave me behind.” she spoke, her voice emotionless and chilled with a deathlike pall.

Her evil gold eyes narrowed cruelly tight as she stared through and past the taut, drawn face of the General. “Your ship must then leave that world… _and never return_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANGST! ANGST! WE GOT FRESH HOT ANGST! ::wings a piping hot bag of angst towards the big dude waving his hands excitedly on the third row from the bottom::


	21. Network Offline

Darkness.

Silence.

Nothing to keep company to but the endless cold night of deep space and the ghostly lights of distant stars.

After convincing General Brendol Hux to allow her to leave the _Finalizer_ on an autopiloted _Upsilon_ class shuttle of her own, Project IV found herself curled up into a small round window, admiring the black void she sailed through. Her eyes did not even look back to the retreating grey ghost of the _Finalizer_ as it pulled away from the solar system that the unnamed Imperial research planet resided in.

She had but one mission left in life… _to destroy Project II_. 

It had been determined that none other than Project II had been controlling and afflicting the ten Stormtroopers that had accompanied Captain Phasma to the planet with crippling mental illnesses; hallucinations, delusions, excited delirium… One man had taken six others to restrain with stun blasters and straps when he was found tapping into the _Finalizer_ ’s communications lines. Another woman had tore her own fingernails out at the roots, and then tried to eat them in imagined terror. Another young man had electrocuted himself purposefully, and shorted out his brain… he would spend the rest of his three days of life in a coma. 

‘ _Bodies don’t especially work well, when all that is left of your cerebellum looks like a thermal detonator had gone off inside its spongy core_.’ she thought to herself, darkly.

As the beautiful young woman stared up and out into the still, soundless expanse of space, she wished that she could join it. Become absorbed into it, and cease to be. Nothing more would remain, only the rime-ice encrusted bones of a forgotten would-be Lord of the Sith.

With Kylo completely estranged from her, and now purposefully severing the mental Force-bond that once inseparably linked them, her once colorful world of two intertwined minds lay as deathly still as what lay beyond the transparisteel window. The loss of that other voice inside her head - that sweet, temperamental, funny, stupid, jealous, immature, beautiful young man’s voice – burned with an aching pain that ran far deeper than any wound that she could remember receiving. 

And now, he was gone forever, for something she could never undo and wished she hadn’t done in the first place, with a man who had forgotten all about her.

A flicker of thought wormed its way between her lonely mind’s eye and her ears… 

… _Did he though_? Had Han Solo truly forgotten all he knew of her?

If he did remember her, even a small fragment, then he was now likely the only person alive who had known her original self… _and possibly even her true name_. 

Reaching back into the deepest wells of her broken memories, the small woman known only to the world now as Project IV focused her powers into recalling the razor-thin energy signature of a man she knew in what now was for all purposes another lifetime…

On the other side of the Galaxy, a graying, aged man with a rough weathered face lay asleep on a hard lump that hardly warranted being called a mattress. His long, bare arms draped across his face bore signs of tightly knotted muscles and scars from time-worn burns and battles. A soft snore rolled from his sun-kissed lips, echoing gently around the old freighter that had been ‘borrowed’ from someone else for a bit too long. 

Suddenly, a stinging insect bit him at the base of his neck, which caused him to awaken slightly and slap coarsely at his skin to rid himself of the pain before rolling back over with a gruff snort. Within moments however, sleep engulfed him once again…

_A light, familiar music filled the warm night air. The tinkling sound of clinking ice and drinks mixed with the laughter of various species of men, women, and unidentifiable ‘others’. He felt the rough, worn wood of the table, the sensation of a partially emptied cold mug in his hand, and a fat wad of credits in his pocket. Just the kind of place and situation that he was happiest in._

_A voice called from the back of the slightly smoke-hazy, intoxicating cantina… ‘So, this is where you’ve gone to hide.’_

_'I'm not hiding from anyone tonight...' Han Solo spoke as turned around in his wide armed wooden chair with a grin. His sharp hazel eyes glittered with anticipation as he went to to call what he had thought was the waitress back over to refill his glass, only to see a figure that did not appear to be part of the cantina scene at all._

_A woman, smaller than he, stood a few meters away staring at him with terrifying gold and red eyes. She had long, flowing locks that glittered like a river of brilliant color down her shoulders, and was clad entirely from head to toe in rich, shimmering black fabrics. At her rounded, curvy hips, an expensive looking pair of lightsabers hung from their belt clips._

_‘Do I… know you?’ he asked, drawing his face up with confusion. ‘I don’t remember seeing you here before…’ Before Project IV could say another word, he continued speaking and drew his face into a wide, toothy grin of rugged leather. “Hey Darkside! What’s a man got to do to get his drink refilled around here? Where’s that waitress? The cute one, send her back out!’_

_Project IV approached closer, before gently seating herself across from Han. Han smirked coyly. ‘I bet you are going to be trouble, aren’t you. What’s your name, sweetheart?’_

_The youthful, terrifying face of the young woman drew taut and stern. ‘That’s what I came here to ask you... so why don’t you tell me.’_

_Han grimaced and waved his free hand away as if he was shooing away a bad odor. ‘Sheesh. You do have some problems, lady. Don’t expect me to buy you a drink with an attitude like that.’_

_Project IV hissed angrily. ‘You… you seriously don’t recognize me, do you…’ Her fists ground into themselves in rage._

_Han shrugged playfully before taking another long swig of his foamy drink. ‘’Fraid not, Darkside. If I did, I’d tell you just to make you leave me alone.’_

_A wicked smile drew across the beautiful woman’s lips. ‘The waitress. Do you remember her name?’_

_A gigantic smile broke across the handsome man’s face, as his appearance in the dream suddenly changed from weathered and aged, to puppy-cheeked and young once more. ‘Her? Of course I do! She’s my favorite at this watering hole. Never serves me watered down drinks, always laughing, and sometimes she even brings me random meals that other patrons sent back to the kitchen on the house, when I’m running down on my luck. She’s a real treat.’ His crooked grinning expression grew even more amused and curious. ‘Why?’_

_The woman leaned in close to his face, and broke a toothy smile of her own. She could still see exactly why she had found this man attractive in another lifetime. ‘Are you sure you don’t recognize me? Perhaps… you should look a little closer, Han Solo.’_

_His eyes darted from one eye to the other, studying behind the unnatural color as much as possible. She was gorgeous, with tender pink lips, fine eyebrows, and smooth silky skin. Suddenly, the youthful man’s mouth fell open as he transformed back into his older counterpart as his face grew cold and pale with horrifying recognition._

_‘ **You…’**_

_The happy din of the cantina faded out, leaving only the two standing before each other in the misty haze of his dream-world._

_Han’s expression grew dark. ‘ **How** … How did you survive? The Empire blew the surface of that whole planet apart looking for someone they really wanted to find.’_

_Project IV stepped back and ran a hand through her hair with vexation. ‘They did. And they found who they were looking for… me.’ Her piercing eyes met his with violence burning behind them. ‘They killed everyone I knew, my home, and my planet… just to make me come with them._ ’

_Han screwed up his chapped lips in a remarkable imitation of his own son’s expression of frustration. ‘I didn’t know it was you they wanted. I just knew they wiped out that whole sector, so I thought that you must’ve got it too when they burned the entire planetary surface straight to ashes…’ Concern burned hot in his hazel eyes. ‘What happened to you anyway? Why’d they go through so much effort to find and take you away?’_

_The young woman turned away, her expression distant. ‘They took me because I was strong with the Force. Then they made me into a monster... And into their new, last hope...’_

_The older, weather-beaten man looked ashamed and heartbroken. ‘I… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’ His mood brightened slightly as he flashed a hint of that same crooked smile. ‘I don't know how it is possible, but it sure looks like you haven't aged even a day since then. And hey, at least you’re still alive. Hell, you’re probably the last one from Antarius III who isn’t pushing up the daisies right now.’_

_Her head cocked in the universal movement of confusion. ‘Antarius III?’_

_Han nodded. ‘Yeah… ‘ His knowing eyes were three steps ahead already. ‘You don’t remember it, do you. The great Massacre of Antarius III?... That's what they all called it, when the Empire came searching for you.’_

_She shook her head with a quick burst. ‘No. My mind is full of blank areas… I hardly remember anything from before I was taken. They did things to my mind..._ ’

_The tall, tanned older man looked down at his feet for a moment of deep contemplation. Slowly, he lifted his head back up to meet her gaze with genuine sorrow. ‘Well, in that case I’m gonna bet that you also don’t remember… me.’_

_A flood of emotion burned her heart straight through like a laser beam, as her mouth went dry. She drew her lower lip up behind her teeth and swallowed coarsely. ‘Actually… yes, I do. You are in fact one of only a fistful of memories I have of who I once was.’_

_Han stared deep into her terrifying yellow eyes. ‘Then you remember that one night, when I…_ ‘ 

_She broke him off and looked away. ‘Yes. Yes I do.’ She spat under her hissed breath. ‘You fucked me, took my virginity, and left me there on the cold floor. I was just another exploit for you to notch on your belt, another one-night stand for you to screw and get away with_.’

_A completely surprised look broke across the rugged, masculine face. ‘What!?’ A deep red blush bloomed under his day old salt and peppered stubble._

_Rage built in her gritted teeth as she snarled back. ‘I don’t believe that I stuttered. You broke my heart, you worthless bastard of a man.’_

_Han stepped back with his hands held wide in front of him. ‘No, you’ve got it all wrong! Well, no, I mean yeah, we did DO it that night, if that’s what you mean… but no, it wasn’t like that! You’ve remembered it all wrong…’ He stammered as he waved his hands in a rapid gesture. ‘After that one night - and yes it was just that ONE night! - I told you that I needed to think things over, and I did. I was really young… and… I wasn’t sure if I was ready to, you know… settle down with someone. You were though. You were gung ho and had everything already figured out; where we would go, what we would do, the places we’d see, the adventures we'd have for the rest of our lives. I thought I needed more ‘free time’. But…’_

_He trailed off before approaching her with seriousness bubbling just under the aged surface of his skin. ‘Turns out that I was ready, just like you were. I came back to look for you two days later, but you were long gone; you had run off the night before I came back because you jumped to the conclusion that I was gone for good and had broke it off with you.’_

_Sadness and regret broke upon the old man’s face. ‘You got the whole thing backwards and wrong, because YOU were the one to break MY heart. I... didn't even want to make any close relationships with anyone else again after you left... Not at least until I met Leia. She changed things for me, in so many ways.' His solemn, sad eyes looked deep into hers for a moment as he pointed to the center of his chest with one large finger. 'You hurt me real bad, right here, sweetheart. It took me years to finally get over what happened between the two of us and move on with my life.’_

_Once put into a state of high emotion, Han’s grizzled, world-weary eyes were actually much like those of his son’s, in that he could not lie with them. He was indeed telling the truth_.

 _Her heart tumbled into her feet as the memory coursed back into her mind from his… It was exactly as he had said it was. It had not been a one-night stand, but a long series of interactions that had started with a friendship… a friendship which had started when he had bumped his head on the floor and bled all over the place. She had sewed him up, and they had become best friends from that time on_.

 _Han picked up both of her small hands and held them in his large tanned ones as the old man faded back into the handsome young smuggler, full of piss-and-vinegar and youth once again. His deep husky voice was now soft and distant. ‘I would have taken you to see those blue firebirds on the fifth moon of Garaxis that you always wanted to see_.’

 _Hot tears welled in her eyes as she gazed upon the face of her lover from another life. He looked so much… like his son_.

_With a single, gentle motion, she pulled her hand from his and touched his tan, boyish face for the last time. ‘Han… I’m so sorry.’_

_He nodded softly as he cracked a crooked smile. ‘I know you are. That's why I forgave you years ago._.’

_A single word caught in her throat, but failed to launch. ‘…I…’_

_Han’s expression softened as she filled in the unspoken gaps with a series of memories that she pushed into his mind. Emotions, sounds, and images of the relationship between herself and his son flooded his mind; she left out the more intimate parts of their lives together that would have embarrassed all three of them had Han seen them, but she otherwise fully caught him up to date on their now shattered relationship. She ended the flow of mental knowledge with a quick replay of exactly what had transpired that had drove them apart, forever._

_Han understood the situation in a way that no one else ever could; both as a man who had loved both of the involved parties - one as a father, and one as a lover - and one who was most awkwardly placed as the 'cause' of their relationship's breakup._

__

_His face slowly aged back into the old man, back into someone’s father as a smile broke his lips. 'I want you to stop what you are doing and go back to him.' His finger pointed into her face, playfully waggling as if he was scolding her. ‘Don’t you go and make the same mistake twice. You’re doing it right now, the same exact thing that you did with me again. But this time you are doing it to Ben… You are letting yourself jump to those big, dramatic conclusions that you always seemed so fond of, and not being patient enough to wait around for the truth to come out.’_

_Laughter echoed in the air. ‘Us Solo men, sometimes just don’t know when we have a good thing, until we’ve let it go and screwed it all up. We're kind of slow like that. He's just like me, in that respect. Don’t let him confuse you into leaving just because he’s still taking his sweet time and figuring this mess all out on his own. Go back to him.' Another sideways grin broke out spontaneously on his deeply creased, worn-leather face. 'If he's anything like how I was at his age, he's as just mad as hell at himself as he is at you for anything you did.’_

_He tipped his weary eyes down to meet hers; the age had not taken any of the shine from them. There was no way to hide the mirth, the youth, the regrets, the fun, or the many years of a full adventurous life that this man held deep inside, even as he moved ever closer towards the end of his time. ‘I want you ask you to to make it up to me, what happened back then... by treating him right. Promise you'll do that for me.’_

_A grin broke across his crooked lips. ‘But don’t tell him that I said that, of course, Tessamari Wingkeale.’_

_Delight and surprise shattered her into stunned silence. Her true name, given back to her at last; given back to her by a man that she had once loved, then hated, and now loved once more as both a friend and as the father of the man she loved still._

_She was Tessamari Wingkeale, the lone survivor of the Great Massacre of Antarius III._

 _And she was not going to make the same heart-breaking mistake twice in two lifetimes._

_A broken laugh trickled through her sweetly smiling, pursed lips. ‘I promise... and I won’t tell him. Thank you...’_

The old man rolled over on his small, dingy lump of a mattress and awoke. He scratched his head; whatever THAT was had sure felt like so much more than a dream.

He got up, turned on a small overhead compartment light, and wandered over to his dark jacket. In the dim light, his wrinkled, leathery fingers plunged into his coat pocket… as he fumbled around in the soft fabric, he thought with a sour scowl that his digits were moving just a little slower than they did the day before.

Suddenly, his prying fingers touched upon a cold, smooth object, and he closed his hand around it. His heart tensed as he withdrew the small object, and it cracked a little deeper when he unfurled his fingers from around it.

In his large, aged hand, he held a tiny hand-carved blue firebird ornament on a thin gold chain. There was only one other like it in all the Galaxy. He knew this, because he had carved the pair of pendants himself from a single crystal that she had found on one of their adventures on _Antarius III_. It was to be a gift shared between the two of them alone, a gift that promised a new life together among the stars. It was a symbol of what would have been their engagement.

His strong hand folded gently around the tiny, precious object and he drew it to his chest. Some distant, faded part of his heart still wished to live in that young man's dream from so very long ago... a dream that never came true.

_But perhaps for **him** … it still could._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Reader/OC/Project IV got a name (you can still insert yourself into that character because I've really not described her appearance much which IS purposeful)... and now she's made a promise to Han to not run from his son like how she jumped to conclusions and ran from him.
> 
> Dammit, I made myself feel bad with breaking Han's heart (not in a crossguard-lightsabery way either). I'm gonna go put myself in the corner and think about what I've done. :(


	22. Instability in Critical Infrastructure

The mighty silver _Upsilon_ class shuttle shuddered slightly and slowed, as it banked in its final approach to the hazy atmosphere of the blue planet. The nearby too-large moon reflected gossamer threads and reflections in the craft’s wide, raptorial, mirror-like wings. 

The young woman rose to her feet as she felt the autopilot kick in. It felt wonderful to stand on her own once more; the effect of the poison had all but dissipated into an unhappy memory. In its place, a warm, floating feeling filled her belly… she had a link to her lost home world, a name once more, and a promise to fulfill to an old, beloved friend with the man she loved.

A hope for the future.

As she approached the empty cockpit to buckle in for the landing process, a desperate buzzing was going off. Her quick eyes quickly found the source; her First Order communications pad was blowing up with urgency. She flicked the answer button... the harried face of General Hux met her on the other end. He was panting as if he had just stopped running.

Hux heaved out between his gasps. “Project IV!! Oh, I am ever so glad to see you, I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour… You have to listen, Ren has gone INSANE. He took out the control room and destroyed the entire weapons controls and the navigation mechanisms. Our entire ship is adrift and helpless!” 

Her face grew taut with concern. She knew that the last time that she had seen him, he was certainly emotionally broken and unstable, but this seemed even beyond the scope of his fury, which should have been directed towards her and not towards the First Order. “Are you safe? Where is he now?”

The ginger-haired General shook his head. His pink lips hung open, still panting slightly. “For the time being we are safe, but we are defenseless. If a New Republic battlegroup finds us…” He trailed off. “As far as Ren goes, I have no idea.” 

He flicked his free hand around nervously. “Most of our equipment is locked up in some sort of instability loop because of the unexpected physical damage to the main servers, but we did detect a launch from one of the docking bays an hour or two after you left, so there is a chance that he was on whatever launched from there. I have someone manually checking the shuttles to see if his is gone.”

Hux leaned his head on a nearby wall for support. All of his fiery energy was gone, drained away in exhaustion and in the panic of the unknown. “The timing between his assault on our equipment and the shuttle’s departure does support the idea that he was onboard… and he may be heading after you.”

Tessamari looked out the front view window of her shuttle, the pines and mountains were coming into view, lit by the moon. Landing would occur within the next few moments. “Hux, I am landing now. I really need to know if he is on your ship or not.” 

Hux nodded and walked up to a panel on the wall, where he typed in a code and spoke into a silvery screen. “Captain Fraciella, can you report on the status of the black _Upsilon_ Command shuttle in Bay 1?”

A man’s voice on the other end answered. “General. I can confirm that the shuttle is no longer on board. I was waiting to get confirmation from Bays 2-7 before reporting in and giving you a full affirmative.”

Hux nodded and thanked the man, before looking back to his com pad and into Project IV’s terrifying eyes. The General had aged several years in the last few seconds, his pale face now as bloodless and waxy as a corpse. “It was him. He’s taken his Command shuttle.”

The woman nodded grimly. “It is extremely likely that he followed me, and also that he may not be under his own control right now.” 

The weary young man closed his eyes as he nodded a solemn agreement with her hypothesis, for her hypothesis was the same one that he had come up with as well. It pained him greatly to have to speak these words at last, to order the demise of someone who was once so trusted. “If you encounter him… and are unable to bring sense back to him, you have my full authorization as General of the First Order… to destroy Kylo Ren.” 

Hux choked back a knot in his dry throat. “Myself and Ren, we were more often found at ideological odds than not, but the man was a loyal ally and great asset to the Order until the end. Ren and I have many years of service together, and I know how strongly you feel for him… therefore you must know that I take no pleasure in issuing you an order for his destruction.” 

His ice-blue eyes opened, just as the shuttle touched down with a soft hiss. “End this, please. Whatever you do, however you must… You must end this. That monster on that accursed planet will not stop until he controls us all or destroys us piece by piece. But, if it is true that he now controls Ren so completely enough to make him do all of this to the man’s own ship and crews, then we are all in terrible danger, Project IV.”

A warm smile broke across her face, parting her plump lips slightly. “ _Tessamari Wingkeale_.” 

Hux was momentarily surprised out of his despair by her odd answer. “What?”

The woman on the other end of his com pad was smiling. “I have learned that that is my true name. I am noone’s nameless Project anymore… I am Tessamari Wingkeale.” Her terrible yellow and scarlet eyes of a Sith Lord betrayed the decidedly more human name that she now referred to herself with. Her teeth shone like white crystals in the dim red light of the shuttle. “While I appreciate your authorization, I will not destroy him. I will find him and free him, just as I freed you. Take care of the crew up there, my friend... and don’t lose hope. I will succeed for myself, for you, for them, and… for him.”

The young General’s graven expression lightened. Somehow, her words had both soothed and stoked the fires within his faltering heart, and given him strength once more. He stood up taller and breathed a blast of cool air. “I sincerely await your next report… and good luck out there, for all of us… Special Operative Wingkeale. Hux out.”

A silly pink cheeked expression broke out on her face at her new designation, granted by the young General. “Thank you. Wingkeale, out.” 

She clicked off the com pad and looked out into the darkened silent world. She could see the wide crater made by the _Finalizer_ ’s big ion cannons, and silvery moonlight danced on the wet edges of the upturned soil. Her senses moved about, seeking either Kylo or Project II… nothing. A void.

Project II was definitely getting stronger – he had blanketed virtually the entire world in an energy-signature cloak, which obscured anything strong with the Force. With a huff of annoyance, she exited the silver shuttle and turned towards the mountains, only to come face to face with the dark form of Kylo Ren, standing around 5 meters away with his crackling red cross-saber in hand. 

Without a word, Kylo rushed at her and swung his saber hard at her mid-section. With impossibly fast reflexes, she crosspulled her twin sabers from her hips, ignited them, and met his snarling ruby saber just as it would have struck her abdomen. 

The hissing, snapping connection of fiery plasma blades locked between the two Dark Force-users, illuminating the night and sending sparks flying in all directions. 

Tessamari ground her teeth as she pushed up and out towards Kylo, throwing him backwards. He immediately landed elegantly on his large feet, and charged her again, saber raised. She threw forward her right hand, catching him in a terrible choking bind. He stopped for a moment, flared his free hand, and _ripped her invisible hands from his throat_ before continuing his charge.

Her mouth fell open… _How_?! 

She raised her sabers up again to catch his blade once more. Something was absolutely wrong with him. When her Force-grip had wrapped itself around his neck, she could feel the blinding power coursing through his veins. Whatever it was, it was far stronger than anything she had ever known him to possess before. 

But… she could not sense the presence of Project II within him... but was that just the Force-signature blocking powers of Project II clouding up her vision?

Summoning up a mighty blast of energy, she placed her foot against Kylo’s chest and kicked off and out; the force blew Kylo back twenty-five meters to knock himself hard against the wide trunk of a gnarled ancient pine. Needles and cones pittered down around the fallen man, his saber still lit and snapping as each piece of arboreal detritus landed on it and ignited. He did not move where he fell.

Tessamari heaved her breaths and clenched her fists tightly around her sabers. _Had she used too much force against him? Had she... killed him?_

Slowly, her question answered itself as Kylo rose to his feet again, his legs wobbly and unsteady. He lifted his head and eyes to face hers… 

…his _eyes_. 

The very sight of them made her blood run cold. Where once had been the beloved gentle gold-and-brown mix of dark velvet, now burned a vicious set of smoldering, yellow-and-crimson eyes not unlike her own. His teeth glinted like white fangs in the dark, as he panted violently.

He charged again, leaving his left arm to dangle at an awkward position. She winced – she knew that impact had been too hard on him. The handsome young man’s arm was clearly broken midway up his forearm, twisting his left hand outwards. It swung limp and loose at his side as he ran. And yet he was unaffected by the terrible injury.

The young Commander collided with her in a tooth-shattering blow that was hard enough to make her knees bend and shake. Her slender wrists quivered as she held her blades up against his onslaught. She needed to disable him, in order to figure out what was causing this, but at the moment she could barely hold her own against his incredibly enhanced powers.

Thinking around her current situation, she broke the grinding lock of the lightsabers, leapt backwards, raised a hand to the upraised wing of her silver shuttle, and broke the metal hydraulics that was keeping the wing up right… And dropped it directly down onto Kylo’s head.

The tall young man slammed down on the ground and onto one knee. For a moment he didn’t move… then he raised his straining, broken left arm and hand up towards the tons of durasteel... and ripped it off halfway. He rose to his feet again; one hand holding the fiery cross-saber, the other shattered arm raised high at the point of his shoulder and somehow, impossibly, holding the half a shuttle wing above his head suspended in the air.

With a grunt, he threw the half a wing at her, swinging his now bloodied left arm at her as he went.

She raised both hands, caught the metal in the air and threw it behind her. The impact and the fuel within the wing caused a mighty explosion, and the nearby forest began to burn in a terrible inferno.

Kylo marched towards her like an impervious, avenging dark angel. At closer range and with the illumination of the flames behind her, she could see that she had injured him, horribly in fact. His left eye was closed and bleeding, dark red blood oozed from his nose, lips, and ears, staining his clothing. His forehead was cut so deeply that white bone was visible within a gouge of twisted pink flesh.

She _was_ killing him.

And he was _not_ going to stop. 

He would keep coming, stronger and stronger, until she was forced to literally destroy him in order to save herself. 

This was Project II’s trap for her… _and Kylo was the bait_.

In horror, she stepped back from the relentless approach of the young man. She raised her arms wide, drooped her head, and dropped her lightsabers to the ground. Tears built hot in her tightly drawn eyes. “I WILL NOT DO THIS, PROJECT II! COME OUT AND SHOW YOURSELF, YOU BASTARD!!”

Kylo finally spoke, his voice grating and hoarse as he stopped a meter before her. “Do you submit?” He aimed his hissing red saber ominously at the center of her chest. 

She nodded and dropped to her knees, putting the saber’s tip right between her eyes as she gazed up at him. “Yes, I submit.”

“Get down on your knees.” he commanded, with no discernible emotion within his raw voice.

Her yellow and red eyes, externally as cruel in appearance as his, now burned brightly in the night with a light from behind and within as a smile lit her smooth, round face. “I won’t let myself be forced to kill the man that I love, so I will allow myself to freely submit to the alternative.” 

Kylo stood impassively by as a second set of footsteps marched up from the forest behind him. The slender, long-haired form of Project II – his severed right arm now gleamed with a silvery cybernetic arm of steel and wire cables – strode up from behind the silent young Commander. 

The silver haired, bespectacled man paused for a moment, tapped one of his shining black boots, and dropped into a long legged squat right before her face. “So, I’ve finally found your true weakness. After all these years, I found the one thing you would do anything to protect.” A sour expression crossed his face for a moment. “Oh, and if you want to continue to protect him, you won’t try anything with me. I’ve linked his mind to mine, and so if I die, so does he.” 

His rictus grin glowered from within his skull-face as he opened his cyborg hand and gestured to Kylo Ren. “It’s fortunate that that _one thing_ of yours also happens to be aligned with the Dark Side of the Force. It has made things so much easier for me to work with.” 

He dismissively waved a hand away, shooing off an invisible annoyance into the air as Kylo silently stood guard with his crimson saber aimed at her head. “Those of you who are aligned with the Light were always just that much more of a pain to break. That never-ending little font of hope bubbling within you just makes it that much more work for me to have to break.” A glint of cruelty punctuated his grin as he nodded towards the kneeling young woman. “As you once were. You my dear, were absolutely the biggest pain to break… you were so strong with the Light, that it took me almost _two months_ to break you.” 

The reflections of the fire burned ominously in his spectacles. “But you… were also my greatest creation... For the power that fuels you the hottest, is also the most potent and difficult to obtain of the emotions of the Darkness – _passion_.” He nodded his head fractionally as he chewed his razor-thin lips, picking up and looking over the Emperor’s lightsabers as if they were the finest of masterpieces. “Oh, the other emotions charge you as well, anger, pain, fear… but it is passion above all that resonates the strongest within you, and brings you the closest to possessing all of that which we desire the most.”

Bitter tears ran hot down her face as stray sparks from Kylo’s saber bit her on the face and neck, burning her skin in several small places. She ground her teeth down in rage. “And what exactly would that be?”

Project II laughed his hollow, cackling laugh as he stood up, turned around with a flourish of his long gray cloak. “ _Power_ , of course.” He gestured slightly to Kylo, before heading off into the night.

Wordlessly, Kylo reached down and lifted her to her feet by the throat. His large hands, once beloved and gentle with her, locked like an iron shackle around her throat. She looked deep into his one hateful good eye, the other still closed and caked with blood; only an endless dark void lay within.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the BlackGoshawk traditional 'Screwing Over of the Feels' continues on unabated. Sorry, y'all!
> 
> PS: Brace yourselves... these next few chapters are gonna get dark as fuck. Remember my 'Horror' and 'Torture' tags? Yeah... we's gonna earn the hell out of them now. :/


	23. Unstable Core

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big ol' honkin' trigger warnings here: Blood, torture, male-on-female physical abuse, all non-schexy stuff. Ye be warned.

Project II marched in front of Kylo Ren up to the entrance of the black Command Shuttle, before wordlessly gesturing for him to drag the passive form of Project IV in with him.

Kylo’s left arm hung broken and useless at his side, so physically he was having quite a bit of difficulty in dragging her up the ramp and into the cargo area of the shuttle. 

In an effort to not harm the grotesquely injured young man any further, the woman smiled softly and voluntarily loaded herself onto the ship, and sat down quietly on one of the jump-seats along the black steel walls.

Kylo emotionlessly pointed towards a nearby heavy medical gurney that was strapped to one of the durasteel bulkheads of the cargo bay. “You will go _there_.”

She sighed with annoyance as she got up from her seat and laid down on the smooth hard plastic pad on the top of the metal gurney.

‘ _You are doing this willingly_?!’ her brain asked her heart over and over again.

As Kylo came over to her to secure her down, she could see more of his terrible wounds in the dim light of the Shuttle. It pained her to see him so battered and broken, his body forced to perform beyond its normal physical and pain thresholds by an evil man who could care less if he lived or died. As he strapped her down to the gurney, she reached up to touch his broken left arm and forced a hard blast of healing energies into it. 

In response, he grabbed her small hand and bound it tightly to the side of the steel table in the rear of his ship at an awkward, painful angle. 

If he was anyone else, she would have blown his head off. Of course, if he was anyone else, she wouldn’t have to be willing herself to remain complacent with being tied down to a damn gurney either, she thought sourly.

Soon after she was strapped down, the mighty Command Shuttle rose up and away with a roar of its powerful twin-ion engines.

Hours passed in what must’ve been a very long jump through hyperspace. Wherever they were headed to must be on the very outer reaches of the known galaxy… somewhere far outside of the prying eyes of others.

Tessamari whiled away the time aboard the Shuttle, intermittently trying to pinpoint where she was in three-dimensional space and trying to contact Kylo. She tried repeatedly to reignite the Force-bond that once linked their minds, but a dark block or a physical obstacle seemed to sit squarely in her way. She attempted to dislodge it with a blast of mental energy, but to no avail.

Moments after her latest attempt at contacting Kylo, a very annoyed Project II wandered into the cargo hold. He walked with long, sinuous strides to come to a halt ominously over his captive. His glasses reflected the ambient light, shielding his eyes from hers in a glare. “I can feel you prodding around in there.” he spoke as he pointed to his head with his silver, cyborg arm. “You are wondering why you can’t reach Kylo Ren in the same way that you could before.” 

Tessamari smiled as she spoke with a venomous tongue. “I assume that you have somehow figured out a way to block me from doing so.” 

The rail-thin, pale man laughed maniacally, sending his slick, waist-length long ponytail flapping behind him like a long, silver ribbon caught in a stiff wind. “Me? Oh no, this was your doing! When you and him created that bond, it left a permanent… oh, how should we call it… an ‘access portal’ into both of your minds. An access portal that allows two users to meet in the middle.” 

He pushed his glasses farther up with the heel of his ghastly, nearly skeletal human hand as he continued. “When you upset him enough that he broke the Force-bond off with you, that access portal still remained.” With a cruel smirk, he shrugged his shoulders. “I simply took advantage of that which you left behind, and moved myself right on in… and without your presence in there to stop me, there was nothing the he could do to defend himself from becoming my new apprentice.” 

Project II leaned down and grinned, mere centimeters away from Tessamari’s now snarling face. “You chose wisely, my lovely friend. He’s a bit of a handy thing to keep around, but I’m sure you already know this. Good pilot, trained warrior and skilled lightsaberist, physically tall and well-muscled, and decently strong in Dark Side of the Force.” The hateful ex-researcher bent down, allowing some wispy threads of silver hair to fall directly into her face. “You must know, that I have absolutely no intention of letting him go. He is _mine_.”

With a sudden burst of violent anger, Tessamari launched herself up and at Project II, biting him on the tip of his nose with her sharp white teeth. She ground into the hateful flesh and bit the end of his nose off, before spitting the bloody chunk of skin and cartilage back at him. 

Project II howled in pain as he clutched at the profusely bleeding stump of his nose, spattering bright crimson blood all over the Shuttle’s cargo bay, the gurney, and Tessamari’s youthful face. 

She grinned out like a sinister demon from the depths beyond even as he raged, reared back and smacked her as hard as he could with his steel, cybernetic hand. Her cheek immediately turned purple with fresh bleeding under the skin, and she spit out a broken piece of one of her molars. 

Her glinting, raptorial eyes flicked back to his… _The smile on her face it seemed, could not be so easily destroyed_. 

So he hit her again, trying in vain to break that demonic smirk. This time he struck her in the chin, snapping her head up and backwards. The tooth-crushing blow dizzied her, causing her to see bright, twinkling lights in the room that did not exist. The swirling, confusing world slowly fixed itself on the bloodied, enraged face of Project II… and she gathered up spat a large mouthful of a mix of both his and her blood back into his face, as she laughed hysterically.

She laughed as he hit her again. 

“ _YOU THINK THAT WAS FUNNY_?!” he hissed.

And again. 

But still she laughed harder, even as the red blood ran freely down her lips and onto the gurney.

“ _ **I WILL BLEED YOU DRY YOU INSOLENT BITCH, AND TAKE BACK WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MINE BY RIGHT**_!” he shouted imperiously, as he hit her as hard as he absolutely could in the abdomen. The gurney’s supports buckled and collapsed partially to the floor from the power behind his terrible blow with a loud metallic scream of failing steel.

Her wheezing, painful laughter was now echoing peals of roaring hysterics; her mind lost in the impossible mirth of the insane. 

The incongruity of the scene momentarily froze the blood in Project II’s veins. 

She turned towards him, spitting dark strings of blood, tooth fragments, and saliva around her chest. “You… _are an idiot_. You will never possess true power… for you are incapable of obtaining it.”

The slender older man gripped her once beautiful face with his human hand, through the mass of blood, hair, and brutalized flesh. He forced her to make eye contact with him, to stare down deep into his mind to see his truth. “Why do you persist in that belief? I have taken it away from you already. You possess no power which I cannot take from you.”

A wide, gory smile broke across her busted lips. “True power, is not _taken_. It is given _freely_. The Emperor knew that. You… _do not_. And so no matter what you do to me, or to Kylo, or to the men of the First Order… You must know that you are absolutely incapable of inspiring people to grant you power of their own free will. Therefore your power will always be a false one, supported and enabled only by fear.”

Her eyes blazed with impossible fury. The unbreakable soul behind the pair of gold-and-crimson irises flared bright, like the core of a white-hot star that was about to break apart under its own gravity, as she hissed out her words. “ _AND YOU… WILL NEVER, EVER HAVE MY POWER... FOR I WILL NEVER FEAR YOU_.”

Project II snatched his thin-skinned, veiny pale hand back from her as if he had been struck by a venomous animal, and stepped backwards. His bloodied alabaster face screwed tightly into a vicious, tight lipped expression, before he turned on his heel to head back to the cockpit. The steel door slammed shut with a resounding bang.

Tessamari was left bloodied and silent in the dim light of the cargo bay. Alone again at last, she focused her mind on healing her wounds with the Force… and on smiling cheerfully to herself amidst the spattered red blood and gore. 

_She had won that battle_.

 _Perhaps she could even win the war_.

The Shuttle’s engines slowly began to spool down as they approached wherever they were heading. The tell-tale sound and vibrations rattled the cargo bay and jolted her into full alertness again.

Soon after, the cargo bay opening into a blinding light… Tessamari blinked in the impossibly bright blue-white illumination of the world. 

Kylo unhooked her gurney from the bulkhead and emotionlessly wheeled her down the ramp, as Project II walked along behind him, gray cape fluttering in the bitter cold in spite of the intense light.

As she was rolled out of the bay, Tessamari squinted, trying to see the world through a flare of white – two suns, one a blue-neutron and one a white-dwarf remnant of a much larger but now faded star - circled over and over again in the distance. The twin stars spun round and round, at least once a second in a bizarre, never-ending celestial dance. Neither one of the two heavenly bodies possessed much heat, but were capable of sending down insanely powerful streams of light and radiation.

Project II had ran ahead from Kylo and towards a mountain range… no. Not a mountain range… it had doors built into the sides of the black cliff faces. The mountain itself was a battleship gray bunker of absolutely colossal proportions. 

Kylo stopped suddenly and tipped his bare face up to the twin rotating suns for a curiously long moment. He raised one of his hands up to shield his eyes, as he stared off almost absently into space. What did he see up there in the onslaught of light?

As Kylo studied the heavens, Tessamari could see that his left arm had mostly regenerated over the course of their trip, likely due entirely to her healing. She smiled softly at the sight. Somehow it soothed her to know that she could fix that which she had broken.

Project II suddenly bellowed out over a howling, icy wind. A glittering swirl of snow and ice fragments danced in the freezing air, half shrouding the evil being and the mountain-bunker from view and increasing the amount of blinding ambient whiteness. “Get her over here now and under the shielding zone, you fool! The radiation from that damn binary star will break down or mutate the Emperor’s DNA in her blood!”

Kylo heeded his new master’s call, and shoved the gurney through the snow as fast as he could. However, given that half of the metal structure had been caved in when Project II had punched the small woman atop it, he was half carrying the broken medical device. His long legs quickly cleared the distance to the shielded bunker, where Project II opened a gigantic door with a series of quick key-presses and a thumbscan. Ancient gears ground open into a gaping chasm.

Imperial signage, long since faded and warped from the action of the intense UV radiation, stood guard on the walls. A massive, almost ornate entryway was barely visible under the alien frost and snow; another black Imperial cog symbol loomed like the nameplate of a headstone over the entrance in the brilliant light of the twin suns.

Kylo half-lifted half-pushed the crippled gurney into the velvety darkness, before the titanic doors closed behind them with an ominous roll like thunder. 

In pale comparison to the white-brilliance of outdoors, many tiny specks of dim lights lined a monstrous black and gray chamber that went on for literal kilometers... This was no bunker. It was a massive spacecraft hangar, the likes of which the Galaxy had never seen before. 

Shining black TIE Fighters from a generation ago lined the walls in neat rows, their hatches still open and ready for eager young pilots that no longer existed. Relics from a bygone age stood perfectly and cleanly ready for deployment; Bombers, Interceptors, a sprinkling of _Lambda_ -Class T-4a Imperial Shuttles… and barely visible in the massive chamber, a single, gray ghost from the past rose up like the sharp finger of Death itself… an unused _Executor_ -class Star Dreadnought – _the last functional Super Star Destroyer in existence_. 

Tessamari choked back a sudden wave of nausea… Project II had been right about one horrible thing: _he did in fact possess the means to rebuild the Empire_.

_He needed only an army to lead, and war could engulf the Galaxy once more as it had in her time._

She gritted her teeth hatefully. If she had to sacrifice herself, and Kylo, it would be to stop this from becoming the fate of the Galaxy. This entire thing was now so much bigger than her, or him… She would never let that bastard take command of these dark and vengeful ghost ships, to do what happened to her to so many others… he would take away the free will of all of the people in the Galaxy.

As Kylo followed Project II into the gaping chamber, Tessamari reached out to warn a mind that might be willing to listen, before she was drawn down into the unknown darkness below…

General Hux sat up in bed, his mind still unable to sleep even with the chemical veil of relaxants. His ship was still not functional, and it infuriated him, keeping him in a perpetual state of adrenaline fueled anxiety. He had been told by the engineers – who he had kept working constantly, well beyond their normal shift hours – that they were still looking at a least a week of immobility, let alone normal command function. 

The young General scowled. For it had been Ren himself, the man who had been privy to every single piece of security detail of the ship, to have left them adrift and helpless. He had known precisely what nodes in the command modules to melt with his damnable saber in order to entirely cripple the great _Finalizer_. 

Suddenly, Hux felt a familiar pain sting him. The woman's mental link with him. ‘ _Why wasn’t she contacting him over the com pad_?’ he thought in a detached moment of alarm. ‘ _Proje-… Tessamari, is everything ok? Why have you contacted me like thi-_ ‘

She hushed him quickly, and let him see through her eyes and through her memories, which could speak louder than words ever could. 

His blood ran cold as he jerked himself straight up from his soft silken gray sheets. Sweat rolled down his forehead and onto his black pajamas. ‘ _Tessamari-… there’s enough ships in there to equip an entire army… Good God, that’s a **Super Star Destroyer** …_’ 

Tessamari winced as she felt Brendol’s terror course through her. ‘ _Don’t be afraid. I’ll do anything to stop this, even if it kills me_.’ She choked back a difficult concept. ‘ _But… if for some reason I fall, I want you and Phasma to know that this place exists – a distant, remote planet of ice and snow under a twin blue and white binary star that constantly rotates - and to take it over or blow it up. I don’t care which, but do NOT let them reignite the Empire under Project II. When your equipment comes back on line, try to track Kylo’s shuttle to this spot.’_

Brendol Hux scowled at her words, then posed a question. ‘ _Wait, Ren is there too_?’

She nodded inside his mind. ‘ _Yes. Project II is using the bond that I once had with him against me, and I have been taken captive_.’ 

The young General’s blood pressure spiked into the stratosphere. ‘ _CAPTIVE?! What? Show me where you are, I will send a squadron of my best men out to retrieve you-_ ‘

Tessamari shook her head. ‘ _NO. No more lives for this. If I tell you to, or if I fall, then come in as a last resort. If I fall, you must raze this planet to the ground… but not before then. Besides, I’m doing this willingly. I need to break Project II’s hold on Kylo in order to free him._ ’

The gurney rolled to a stop at the foot of a wide elevator, just behind the docked Super Star Destroyer. Project II pressed a series of commands, and the heavy steel elevator rumbled to life and headed up towards them in the hangar.

The woman’s voice became quickened and stern. ‘ _Hux, they are taking me down under the hangar. I don’t have long. Do NOT do anything unless I tell you to, or unless you feel me… die_.’

Brendol swallowed. ‘ _I will do as you ask. Please… be safe, and stop that madman_.’

Project II suddenly snapped his head over to where Tessamari lay on the gurney; his sharp eyes burned with the realization that she was communicating with someone via the Force. In a rage, he reeled back and slapped her hard across her still bruised, blood-spattered face. “INSOLENT BITCH! WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO INSIDE THAT PRETTY HEAD OF YOURS?!”

Hux on the other end grabbed at his pale, freckled face in ringing pain; he had felt the blow as it at happened. The connection still remained active between the pair, allowing him to feel her smiling wickedly through bloody lips, as she answered the man audibly. “I’m talking to the head of the Department of _Why Don’t You Go Fuck Yourself_.”

Project II narrowed his cold yellow and red eyes and snarled. “To whatever _rat_ is listening in on us, listen well to my words. This is the beginning of a new age, and I will become your new Emperor. You WILL bow to me, wherever you are.” He squeezed her face, crunching the skin and bones together with his cyborg hand, making both Brendol and Tessamari feel it at once. “As far as the fate of this… _garbage_ … just know that she will die a horrible death. You will never find her body to mourn. She will never again see the light of day after I have broken her and reduced her to ashes.” 

The paper-thin, nearly translucent skin of Project II hung to the outlines of his gaunt face as he leaned in closely to her eyes, filling Brendol’s view with his grotesque, skeletal features and reflective spectacles. In a detached moment of revulsion, the ginger-haired young General realized that part of the older man's nose was missing, which revealed the twin entryways of his nostrils from the front of his bloodied face. “… _and the same fate will await you, if you try and stop me_.”

The connection abruptly went black and silent, just as Project II reeled back and punched Tessamari in the head with his metal arm and fist, hard enough to knock her out cold. 

Somewhere elsewhere in the Galaxy, the body of General Brendol Hux lay strewn across his bed, arms out and his steel-blue, unfocused, unconscious eyes aimed blearily at the ceiling. 

It wasn’t exactly sleep, but it would have to work for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Project II is a homicidal, manipulative, abusive dick. As such, he needs a serious punch in said flaccid dick.
> 
> PS: HE KO'D POOR HUX THROUGH THE FORCE, WTF. Ten yard penalty, excessive roughness!


	24. Failure Imminent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK - seriously, huge, weapons-grade NSFW and NSFLife trigger warnings here in this, what is likely the darkest of the chapters in this story. 
> 
> I'm talking 5,000-odd words of torture, blood, a non-consensual rape, graphic description of physical injury, sexual descriptions, and enough angst to defy the Geneva Conventions.
> 
> You **have** been warned, and I am not paying your damn psychologist bills if you choose to proceed and read this train wreck.
> 
> Y'all who continue on have my most sincere condolences.

Beeping noises and the steady thrum of electronic equipment droned mindlessly in the background, as life slowly poured back into Tessamari’s brain. The world swirled incoherently around as consciousness came back around to her, bit by bit. 

The pain from the punch she had received earlier had not yet subsided in her ringing head. In fact, had her Force-strengthened tendons and cervical vertebra been any less sturdy, the blow that she had sustained from Project II’s cybernetic arm was hard enough to have fully decapitated a lesser individual. 

The room she was in was dim, dark, and filled with random computer equipment. Silvery, clear plastic and glass tubing ran from her arms and into the darkness. Her own crimson blood filled the tubes that ran from her, collecting into a gigantic centrifuge and cell sorter, which vibrated constantly with internal movement. Heavy steel restraints locked around her arms, holding her upright in a tightly drawn ‘T’ position. 

She jerked her head violently away at the terrifying sight of her captivity, only to hear the resounding jingle of a heavy steel clamp and chain that bound her at the neck. Cold sweat ran down her arms and legs, and her eyes pinned in a heart-pounding, adrenaline response. Unspeakable old traumatic memories flooded her mind; she had been in nearly this exact room, and in nearly this exact position once before.

 _It had been when they had first broken her, and made her into a monster of their own design._

Suddenly a terrible wail burst from her lungs, a cry of uncontrollable, psychological terror. She lashed out and struck at the steel restraints with all of her powers in the Force, but the Force seemed weaker, and refused to comply. Her powers were being siphoned away as soon as they had formed, rendering her all but powerless. In frustration and anger, she flailed like a captured animal against her restraints, bruising and bloodying her skin in terrible dark shades. 

She was back in an Imperial research laboratory; a bound and chained slave once more.

No one came to attend to her screams, not for an hour, not for a day, not for three days. No one came to tell her their demands, no one to gloat over her fall. 

_No one at all_. 

Only silence and the monotonous thrum of pumps and machines, mindlessly performing their duties.

Over time, depression and grief began to overtake her mind, tainting her thoughts with cruel bitterness. The frail hopes that she had just begun to harbor within herself, those small pieces of joy that the others had given her – Kylo, Hux, and even Han - now found themselves being cursed for their very existence. 

The fledgling belief that she could become herself, her _true_ self once again, that she might not have to be a slave to the fate that the Empire had chosen and forced upon her… this was her return for daring to think such blasphemy against them, her true masters. 

She would fail Brendol Hux and the First Order. She would lead them all to their deaths when Project II used his powers against them, and then they would burn in the Armageddon that his impossibly large arsenal would rain down upon their weakened ship.

Even the fact that she had chosen to reclaim the name of her weak former self had now betrayed her. She was weak, and she would always be weak. 

_This was her true fate._

Finally, several days after she had lost any sense of the flow of time, a creaking door opened and closed with a resounding bang of steel. The twin sounds of light footsteps and heavy, stomping boots strode in. 

The constant draining of her blood over the week or more had taken its toll, in spite of her constant efforts to refuel her vital supplies with the Force. Right now, even the Force itself felt more distant and harder to reach than ever before; it had abandoned her in her weakest hours. She was pale, thin, and naked, and it took monumental effort to so much as lift her head. Dried sweat clung to her hair, and her hollow mouth was as dry and coarse as a charnel pit.

Two figures walked into the room, one slightly before the other. As the first one reached the light, she could see that it was the hateful, cruel skull-face of Project II. The imperious ex-researcher glowered over her captivity; his toothy sneer visible from across the room. The other one stayed back in the darkness, but she could see enough details around the face to confirm that it was Kylo Ren. His handsome face was firm and impassive, like that of a mannequin, with no detectable emotion. 

Project II walked calmly around the room, examining several collected containers of blood and tapped quietly at a few softly glowing blue monitor displays. He hummed as he read over the results, and then a smile broke against his thin lips as he excitedly darted over to another monitor, and then another. 

He then retrieved a small, faintly glowing dark vial from one end of the collection system, and carefully placed it in one of his pants pockets.

Finally, he turned to face the drained, gaunt form of Tessamari Wingkeale, who hung like a sacrifice to an unknown dark god of unfeeling mechanization and nameless science equipment. He walked up to her, looked her broken body up and down. His missing nose tip had mostly healed, but a nasty, fetid purple scar remained. Almost sensuously, he ran his cold, skeletal fingers along her side from her hip to her armpit, and then up to rest under her chin. He lifted her chin to meet his piercing gaze. 

“You my dear… are _mostly_ broken. But not yet quite enough, at least not for what I require. No, you are still holding out on me.” He leaned in, his breath hot and rank with a stench like rotting garbage. A thin, pale pink tongue flicked out and licked the dried blood from her lips, leaving a thin string of saliva behind as he pulled his head away. “You will give me what I want… or I’ll have him just take it from you.”

Tessamari said nothing, and stared through him as she remained silent and unmoving.

Without an external motion or gesture, Project II summoned Kylo to his side, right in front of the young woman’s naked body. He spun on the heels of his slick black shoes to walk a few meters away from Kylo, before stopping abruptly.

He looked back over his right shoulder, his cruel Sith-Lord’s eyes burning with glittering delight. “ _Break her._ " he coldly ordered.

The tall, slender man then walked out of the room with a flick of his long silver ponytail, and closed the door solidly behind him. A solid locking mechanism clicked into place a moment after the door slammed shut, sealing them together within the darkened room.

Kylo’s impassive face suddenly drew up into a fierce, animal snarl, as he pulled his soft pink lips back from his sharp white teeth. One of his big hands snatched upwards and locked around her neck, above the silver restraint collar. He squeezed the flesh harshly, compressing the already weak veins and arteries within her slender neck, causing them to bulge out slightly. 

His eyes were as horrifyingly yellow and crimson as they were on the night she had arrived for the last time on the original research planet. Behind those piercing, evil eyes, the same familiar void of blackness burned glacially cold behind them.

He suddenly pushed his soft, plush lips against her chapped, thin ones. His broad tongue snaked out, tasting the dried blood and sweat that had accumulated there, as he pressed his tense body up hard against her naked form. As he forced his cruel tongue into her weak, anemic mouth, he tugged his black gloves off with a stinging snap and dropped them to the floor beside him.

Tessamari’s eyes flew open in surprise; where once his kisses had ached with tender love and burning passion from deep within his core, they now scalded her skin like acid with their hate and cruelty. His kiss was hollow, cold and all wrong, even though his lips were the physically the same ones as before. 

Without notice, the air was pressed from her lungs as he pushed himself bodily up against her. She could feel him grinding the rock-hard bulges of his throbbing erection through his many layers of black clothing. He continued to push his large, hot length against her body, while he ran his free hand slowly up between her bare, cold legs, tracing a thin pathway upwards. His prying, prodding fingers quickly found themselves in a familiar location…

Suddenly, she knew _exactly_ what it was that he had been instructed to do to her in order to ‘ _break her_ ’ for his master.

And for the first time, she felt a true, visceral fear pulsing in her heart with each thumping beat… the deeply traumatic terror that could only come from being hurt in such a way, by someone that she loved and trusted. 

Kylo suddenly pulled himself backwards from her body, even as the pale, knotted fingertips of one hand was bound at her throat and the other one was jammed deep between her legs. All of the hate was still there, raging in his curled lips, tensed muscles and iron hands. 

But his _eyes_ … 

His horrible, aquiline eyes… _were wet_. 

Silvery fat teardrops collected from his dark eyelashes and rolled down his handsome, chiseled cheeks and jaws, between all of his many freckles and beauty marks like a thin rivulet. The warm liquid dripped from his chin and dropped down softly onto the black fabric folds on his chest, staining little round dark ovals onto the dense material.

She looked deep within his tear-stained eyes; a glimmer of horrifying familiarity shone out from somewhere far within. A flicker of human consciousness within the automaton of flesh that bound it… 

_He knew_. 

His true self, the man trapped within the controlled machine of his body _knew_. He recognized her enough to know exactly who she was, and what was about to happen. Worst of all, he also knew that he was absolutely powerless to stop himself from doing the things that he was being forced to do. 

She suddenly understood. This entire thing wasn’t just about torturing her at all, although that was certainly a component of Project II’s little game. 

He wasn’t just torturing her… _he was purposefully torturing Kylo as well_. 

Of course. _Kylo Ren, the hated grandchild of Darth Vader… Traitor to Emperor Palpatine_. 

He was going to destroy the young man from the inside out as he continued to use his body as his servant; he would break the young man within the shell in the most sadistic and evil of ways that he could think of.

Project II fully intended for this to break Kylo’s will as well, making him permanently into his passive slave, by forcing his body to rape the woman he loved, while his true self was forced to watch on... absolutely helpless to intervene or prevent himself from performing the hateful act.

And if all of this was intended to be a torture for Kylo in the highest order, then it could only mean one thing… 

_Kylo did in fact still love her after all_. 

For if he did not love her, the torture wouldn’t be nearly as effective as Project II had most certainly intended it to be.

A gentle smile broke across Tessamari’s face as the horrible truth dawned on her. 

With her piercing, raptorial eyes, she buried herself deep within his gaze, trying desperately to make contact with the small sane piece of the mind of the terrified young man that was locked within the cruel monster. A grin broke her pale lips. “I see you in there... Don’t be afraid. I still love you too, Kylo…” 

Her voice, now just as soft and pleasing as she could make it, spoke to the man inside. “He’s using your body against me. I won’t let him use _you_ against me… so don’t be afraid. I already know what’s going to happen… so you won’t hurt the part of me that matters.”

Kylo hissed hatefully as he jerked himself back up against her and jammed his fingers deep within her opening with heartless, twisting malice. “I am not afraid, but YOU will fear ME, and I WILL hurt you. _Now say it, bitch_. Say you’ll serve my master, and I might go easy on you.” his deep voice echoed ominously. The tears continued rolling down his cheeks as he swallowed hard. 

The man who stood before her was clearly in combat with himself; he didn’t want to say or do any of these things… and those silver tears in his eyes could not lie.

Tessamari struggled as he wept; the physical pain he was inflicting on her was hurting her terribly inside. He was being rough and forceful in one of the most sensitive regions of her body, but in addition to that, the wordless hate that his energy now burned with was seeping into her skin with each of his cruel touches. 

She swallowed and leaned forward into his face as she tried to push the hurt away from the forefront of her mind. “It’s just us right now. Do you remember how we used to be together, when we were alone? I wasn’t very nice to you that first time, but you liked it anyways by the end. We can pretend that this whole thing is like that.” 

The smirk on his face twisted up, even as tears rolled down into the deep corners of his lips and wide dimples. “Do you think that this feels _good_? Well, let’s see if you like _THIS_!” The handsome young man hovered over her face for a second, growled, and jabbed more of his hand up into her warm, wet entrance, before twisting abruptly at a harsh angle. 

She squeaked in pain. “I… _No_ … Let’s have fun with this, just us. Not him. Just like how we-“ He plunged deep inside her again, and wrenched his fist aggressively to one side. “- _urg_ -used to be together.” Her muscles contracted involuntarily with a new, sharp tearing sensation inside.

Kylo roared in frustration as he pulled his hand out from her body and off of her neck, leaving her to gasp and draw in the refreshing flow of oxygen and blood. His hands flew to his black clothing and he violently removed it, flinging his garments around the room in random directions. 

His lightsaber fell from its clip to the floor with a loud clatter, and ignited randomly as it landed on its golden ignition switch. The sparking, snarling saber vibrated in place on the cold concrete floor, sending random reflections of crimson light dancing around the reflective surfaces of the room.

Tessamari looked on as he quickly stripped himself completely naked; the hissing, crackling lightsaber underlit the handsome young man’s pale body like a dark god. The ruby plasma blade continued vibrating in place, casting animated nightmare shadows around the room, as the soft luminescence scattered like dancing firelight across the masculine curves of his broad chest and taut muscles. His long, slightly wavy raven-black hair glittered in the flickering red glow. 

She swallowed as he approached her again, with cold, emotionless, predatory malice burning in his entire demeanor. Her eyes were wide, but she focused her energies into stomping down her fears… but a terrible uncertainty remained.

 _By the stars above, how she so hoped that she was right about all this… because if she was wrong..._

He clenched and unclenched his fists randomly, and the wide muscles of his alabaster thighs tightened beneath the smooth skin. His pink throbbing manhood stood rigid and erect as it twitched ominously, clear liquid already leaking from the end. 

Yet the flow of his trickling tears had not stopped. 

He ran his fingers along her hips and up to the pale nipples of her breasts, before seizing one in his hand and squeezing it cruelly, leaving bruises dug down into the soft flesh. She shrieked loudly in pain, and swallowed a wad of thick saliva down her parched throat. Her teeth sank into her lower lip, drawing an anemically thin, mostly plasma trail of blood.

 _She could do this, she had to._

A smile broke her injured lips, as she whispered a pleasurable, moaning sound.

Kylo swore at the sound and slapped her as hard as he could, breaking one of her front teeth in the process. “YOU WILL HATE EVERY REMAINING BREATH THAT YOU DRAW, BITCH, WHEN I AM DONE WITH YOU!!” he shouted in her face with utter cruelty. 

Warm spittle spattered her fresh injuries and burned the skin beneath with a slightly acid twinge of pain. Hot red blood spattered her chest and arms; the gooey, dehydrated blood dripped in long dark crimson strands down to her bare skin. 

Tears streamed down his face, as he snatched her long, beautiful hair and pulled it back behind her with a tendon and bone popping jerk.

To endure was the only way to save either of them from their imprisonment. _'You must be stronger than this.'_ she told herself, as she steeled her iron resolve and swallowed a gulp of fresh blood.

Her toes twisted as she made herself act out the motions of pleasure, all the while enduring physical and emotional pain of the very worst kind.

The handsome young man used his fingernails to drive down into the skin of her chest hard, before pushing them into the layers of her flesh and pectoral muscles. She screamed and jerked wildly in pain, as the exposed muscle fibers hit the air. More crimson blood ran freely down her skin from the deep holes he had just torn in her smooth skin. 

A playful smile broke her bleeding lips, as she willed her mind into happier places and times. “H… _harder_.”

Kylo cocked his head in confusion, but seeing no further response after a moment, his brows furrowed viciously as wadded his big fist up and hit her hard enough in the abdomen to break a rib on each side. Bubbling crimson spit dribbled from her mouth as she struggled to catch her breath, before he reeled back and slapped her again from the other direction. 

Tears poured down his face and onto his collarbone. He was sniveling and snuffling now, his nose running freely with excess saline liquid.

She coughed violently, sending blood and saliva spattering across Kylo’s broad, pale chest. Slowly, as air found its way back into her battered lungs, her fiery eyes met his and ignited once more with power drawn from deep within. “ _Is that… the best you can do? I… thought I… taught you… better… you… are still too… innocent…_ ” she heaved with a broken smirk.

"BITCH!!" he shouted, as he pulled back in a fiery rage and hit her again in the face, his large body nearly falling forward from the force of the mighty blow. Blinding pain wracked her jaws, which had to be popped back into place with a wide yawn and the audible crack of dislocated bone and tendons. 

The woman’s broken, bloodied face snapped back towards him, angrier than before as she spit more blood onto his porcelain chest. The left side of her jaw was swollen and not as functional as the right side from the blow. “I SAID HARDER, YOU WORTHLESS BASTARD!” she snarled violently in response.

Kylo screamed and lunged at her, lost in fury. He snatched her slender legs up to his hips, and placed his hands roughly into the soft skin there, crunching down fistfuls of fat, skin and bone alike. Taking no care to be kind or gentle about the matter, he found her opening with his free hand, and then slammed his wide, throbbing erection at full force up deep within her. 

She cried out in suffering as hot tears involuntarily ran down her face, while he pushed himself as far as he could inside her body. Undoubtedly, there was blood and torn flesh involved somewhere down there; the acid burn of air and slightly salty fluids burned in several newly raw places. 

Kylo laughed cruelly as he drilled himself up inside her, his large hands forcing her hips down as hard against him as he could in order to achieve maximum penetration. His broad chest quivered both from his sniveling, mewling crying, and from the effort that his muscular body was putting into committing the heinous act.

“ _Ben!!_ ” she suddenly cried out as she threw her head back. She pressed her chest against his, and continued shouting his true name as if in the throes of ecstasy. 

The use of that other name of his electrified him for a reason that he could not fathom, and he thrust himself rudely up again into her bruised body with a primal, animalistic grunt, as the tears streamed down his face and onto the floor in large drops. 

She was in terrible, blinding pain from every movement he made. Her broken ribs, her shattered teeth and their exposed nerve endings, the week or more of drained blood and starvation, not to mention the various holes, hairline fractures, and bruises that he had inflicted upon her... they were all compounding into what was quickly becoming potentially unhealable levels of physical damage.

Without warning, she suddenly began to pump her body up and down in rhythm along with his primal, animal thrusting. It took an extremely large portion of her remaining energies to force herself to commit to these actions, but she did so nonetheless. 

Kylo’s fingers at her hips recognized and felt the sensations of the large muscles in her thighs suddenly working in concert with his movements; with an odd expression he realized that _he_ was not fucking _her_ , but that _she_ was fucking _him_ , as he impaled her roughly against his manhood. 

A curious emotion crossed his tearful face as he continued thrusting and grinding inside of her, and he looked forward and into her eyes for an answer. Instead of being fearful, broken or terrified of him, her bloody, broken body was contorted in apparent ecstasy; her head thrown back and eyes screwed shut with pleasure. 

But how… how was _any_ of the cruelties that he inflicted upon her… _pleasurable_? 

He couldn’t remember… but something lingered in the haze of his stormy mind that he could not shake. 

The conundrum before him vexed him greatly; it was an unexpected break in what should have been the straightforward logical mission that his master had commanded him to do. He had hurt her, quite badly and obviously so. She should have been writhing in pain and fear; but instead _she was fucking him and screaming his name_. It defied logic.

The young man reached for the soft curve of her cheek with one hand, and drew her head up to meet him from its backwardly thrown position. His mind had to know; the ability to take pleasure in such agony and endure was a mysterious power that he needed to understand and possess, in order to better serve his Dark Lord and master.

His intense, evil eyes bore into hers like a laser beam. “ _How_ -“

Her thin, bloodied lips darted forward and pressed themselves hard into his, in a tender burst of passion. She ground her lips into his, and ran her tongue across the smooth, warm skin. A gentle moan of pleasure broke her kiss, but not before she took advantage of his surprised, slightly open mouth and forced her tongue behind his teeth. 

Kylo’s eyes flew open in confusion as he tasted the iron of her blood on his tongue. _Why was she kissing him now_?! Her powers of physical endurance were so incredibly strong… he needed to know… 

But as those lips ground against his… he realized… that they felt… _good. Wonderful, in fact_. 

Like a pleasure once forgotten, but now refound. 

They felt needy, and sensual, and absolutely delightful. He found himself truly liking the hot, tingling way that it made him feel inside; it was an intensely emotional feeling that even the sexual act that he was currently undertaking with her wasn’t making him feel. He suddenly pushed back against her mouth, forcing his tongue to battle it out with hers between their mouths and lips, as he pounded himself up into her body. 

His tears never stopped, even as he whispered between his vicious grunts, almost as if two different men were using the same vocal chords at once. 

“ _Forgive…me… please..._ ” 

Kylo’s other hand went to her left cheek and brushed the skin there; he enjoyed the sensation of her silken skin, the feel of her fine eyelashes tickling against his rough hands, the smell of the oils on her face. He inhaled the scent of her body at close range, and closed his eyes in a deep, sensual luxury of delight.

His mind suddenly relaxed; the sound of her rapid breathing, the sweat-stained smells of their bodies, and the burning feeling within their passionate kiss… he didn’t want to let it end. Something inside him wanted this to continue…

_But why?_

Suddenly, the muscles of his body tensed up, his senses set ablaze with raging fire from within. He screwed his eyes tightly shut and inhaled deeply as he reached his violent, forceful climax within her… 

...The world flared white and soundless…

He suddenly found himself bound tightly in chains, shackled to the floor of a small darkened room. His once handsome body was skeletally thin and emaciated, as if he had not seen the light of day or nourishing food in many days. The young man was still naked, but he was no longer caught up in the throes of orgasm or the messiness of sexual activity; instead he was kneeling solemnly in the center of the dark room, alone and chained. The sweet stench of moldering meat clung to his thin skin; he was dying, rotting from the inside out.

Tears stained his soft, dark brown eyes, and a clear puddle of liquid surrounded and pooled where he knelt. Dried tears clung to his chin and jaws from where he had been sobbing in the darkness for so long.

He suddenly felt the intruding burn of a pair of eyes falling upon him, and slowly he turned around… A figure appeared behind him in a wide, blinding burst of white and gold sunlight that tore through the darkness.

As his hot, tear-stained eyes adjusted, the woman that he had seen and known before his capture, now stood before him. Her body was a vision in radiant flame and blinding light, like a sun somehow captured indoors. The once solid wall of his prison behind her was now a roiling portal of energy; the opening in the void was lit up in a blazing ring of white luminescence. He squinted his eyes hard in order to see any of her features at all. 

Without a sound, she approached him… her hands raised soundlessly. With a soft clatter of dropped steel, his chains fell away, burning and writhing as they withered away in the sunfire that she brought with her, while she walked towards him.

The fiery woman stopped a half meter away from his bony chest. Rot had started to eat through the skin in several places, exposing his brown, rancid flesh beneath. His knees were swollen and looked too large for his frame; the muscles of his thighs and calves had wasted away, leaving only baggy skin behind to drape over his bones. He didn’t want her to see him this way; he was ashamed of himself.

He was a _monster_. 

Wordlessly, she told him with a smile that he was not, and that she loved him anyways, no matter his current appearance or what he had done before. He had no reason to hide himself from her; in her eyes he had done nothing wrong. She told him that he was as much of a victim in this as she was.

The beautiful woman’s radiance gently dimmed just enough that he was capable of seeing her features… she was unblemished, healthy, and gorgeous. A kind smile broke her sun-goddess’ face; her expression was gentle, honest, and looked to be on the verge of tears of happiness. 

The energy in the room suddenly increased with a heavy pulsating noise, as the void portal against the far wall began to grow more intense and powerful; he realized that the roiling portal had grown at the exact same time as that of a thumping sound... the sound of a heartbeat. The sound of the heart - was coming from within his own chest. 

The rotten hide and flesh above his bones suddenly came to life and twisted over themselves in fury, repairing and knitting sinew and organs back together. Muscles bloomed beneath sallow skin, pumping blood and vigor back into his empty veins. 

Her incandescent skin glowed from inside with luminous flame, as she reached towards his face to place her smoldering fingertips against his cold lips…

 _ **Fire.**_

Heat, passion, and intense flames erupted against his cold skin from her lightest touch. 

The unseen embers that she placed against his lips suddenly became an inferno, and it swallowed him in its mesmerizing conflagration. He begged the twisting, rising flames to take him in, to consume his rotting flesh, and never release him again from their love and light.

The pressure on his lips withdrew. He suddenly felt her precious fingertips leave his mouth, but only for a moment, then suddenly they were replaced by the softest touch of her silken smooth, scaldingly hot lips… 

…and the world collapsed inwards on itself in a leveling blast of white light, as the portal grew impossibly large and consumed them both inside the intense solar fire of its light.

Sweat ran cold down his face; in his ears, the only sound he heard was the steady thrum of machines and the pounding pulse in his neck, which reverberated loud like war drums. His eyes snapped open abruptly in disorientation. He was no longer in the strange dark room where he had been chained. 

In his arms, he held the beautiful, bloodied woman as he had before, however now she slumped limply against his broad pale chest. Her slender left leg that was still wrapped around against his hip, slowly began its unguided, downward slide to the floor. He realized that their bodies were still joined; and in horror he uncoupled himself from her.

 _What had felt like hours, had actually occurred in the merest fraction of a second._

His fingers ran down her battered, bloodied face, mindlessly tracing the gentle curves of her fine jaws and cheeks… her skin was cooling and still as he watched her eyes roll back into her head. The woman that he loved even more than he did himself had just used the last of her energy to push Project II's mind from his, to reignite and repair their broken Force-bond, and to free him from his deathlike prison inside his head… 

_…the woman that he still knew only as Project IV._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that the warnings and tags have been updated appropriately, I'll show myself off to the war-crimes tribunal now. I'm being called to answer for my crimes against humanity and all the feels I murdered. :/


	25. Power Surge Detected

Dancing red beams of light bounced around the cruel research chamber, as the still activated cross-shaped lightsaber of Kylo Ren vibrated and snarled in place on the concrete floor. Little crimson sparks emitted from the main blade and scattered about like impish demons, gleeful and desperate to escape their fiery birthplace. The almost festive bursts of glowing embers contrasted sharply with the heart-rending view just a few feet away. 

The nude, muscular body of Kylo Ren, still clutched the limp form of Project IV up to his chest as he stood frozen in horror; his mind still reeling and not fully cognizant of the events of the past several minutes. His sparkling eyes, now returned to their natural deep brown and gold shade, were pin-pointed and aghast at the nightmarish sight before him. 

In a sudden fury, the tall young warrior began ripping all of the demonic tubes and machinery out of the cooling skin of the unconscious woman, who still hung from her restraints. While carefully supporting her body with one strong arm, he reached down to the floor, snatched up his still crackling red lightsaber, and proceeded to carefully burn the heavy steel chains from her wrists and neck before lowering her to the ground. 

With delicate, careful movements, he gently folded her limbs in around her in a comfortable fashion. He pressed two of his fingers against her bruised neck to feel for a pulse against her carotid artery. He frowned as he poked around in various spots; if a pulse was there at all, it was difficult to detect, and very thready and weak. 

Panic abruptly set in; grave medical injuries of this nature was beyond Kylo’s ability to understand, for his understanding of human medicine and physiology was weak at best. He was a warrior and a fighter, not a man of science.

But he also knew that the Force was his ally… and the Force needed no medical degree. It knew the bodies of all beings, in and out, and better than any doctor or medic ever could, and it still obeyed his commands.

Kylo ground his teeth together beneath his lips as he summoned a massive swell of dark Force energy to his fingertips, and after a moment of allowing them to collect and grow there, pressed them into the soft sides of her skull. The energy that poured from his skin and into her head looked a beautiful dark violet color bleeding directly into her skin; the visible energy appeared as if the nighttime itself had been made tangible and liquid. 

In spite of his efforts with the Force, the body of the young woman remained cold and still. His lower lip began to quiver uncontrollably… _it wasn’t working_. He doubled the intensity of his efforts… to no discernible effect.

Silver tears suddenly began to fall from his eyes, when he realized in gasping panic that he couldn’t feel her presence inside his head anymore. 

He was too late… she had slipped away from him. “ _No_ …” he whispered, the words barely audible over his own breath.

The large, slender fingers of both of his hands wrapped themselves around her head and face, cradling it upwards as he softly sobbed. She looked so peaceful and serene, like a finely sculpted wax doll’s face that had made by the ancient hands of an artisan. His face drew into a harsh sneer as he buried his face into her long, slender neck; if she was a work of art, she was one which had been callously broken and damaged by a careless child into an unrepairable state. He had been that child… and he had broken what could never be made beautiful and whole once again.

It was too much, all of it. 

Suddenly, Kylo’s face screwed into a tight expression as he burst into hot tears. His deep voice cried out with a keening, heart-rending scream, as he drew her tightly into his warm, blood-spattered chest. His long black hair intertwined playfully with hers, as the liquid from his eyes and sweat from his skin slicked his once wavy locks smooth and straight. The muscular young man’s large body rocked back and forth, as he tried to comfort her cold, limp form in an almost parental manner. A trickle of slightly foamy, bubbled red blood dribbled from her lips and down onto his lap, as her head swung slightly forward from his movements.

His heart and mind reeled back to the moment where he let it all go wrong... _if only he could take it all back… he would do **anything** to take it all back_ …

  


\----------------------------------------------------v^v^v^v^v^v^---------------------------------------------------------

  


The Master of the Knights of Ren paced furiously back and forth in a flurry of turbulent black fabric. His crimson, crackling lightsaber had charred the walls and machinery of yet another command room, in his bottomless well of hate and ire. The burnt steel and ozone odor of various fried electronics tainted the recirculated air of one of the front chambers of the _Finalizer_ in an acrid cloud of smoke.

The young Commander's mind roiled with vengeful black thoughts for the unforgivable sin that she had committed against him with - _of ALL of the possible people or things in the Galaxy_ \- his despicable father. There was nothing, absolutely _NOTHING_ that she could do to absolve herself of that little 'mistake', no matter how far in the past or how short of a duration it had been. 

He could never again be with someone who had fucked his father and then cheerfully omitted that little detail, only AFTER fucking him as well. It was as simple as that. 

But she was a manipulative and powerful individual. He would have to act quickly, or she could force him to have to listen to her liar’s voice again. In order to make sure that his currently silent mind stayed that way, he was going to make sure that she could never, ever hurt him as badly as he hurt at that moment. 

It would be his final rude gesture towards that disgusting, lying whore of a woman.

Kylo clipped his lightsaber at his side, inhaled sharply a few times, and then mentally trained all of his powers against the surface of his mental connection with her… their Force-bond. 

Once, it had been forged between them in the throes of passion and love. Now, he felt only contempt and betrayal in her lingering, and thankfully, currently wordless presence inside his skull. He didn’t want to feel anything for her ever again. With this act, he would make absolutely sure of that that damnable woman would never again reignite the bond, and try to weasel her way back into his life. 

He placed his large, gloved hands on the sides of his head and exhaled a puff of air, just as he applied a deep, scaldingly hot pressure to the thin mental pipeline within the Force... The connection resisted, and fought desperately against his assault. The bond seemed to have some sort of Force-shielding of its own, which it raised in defense of itself, however with Project IV not reinforcing her end of the portal it allowed his hatreds to burn swiftly through it within moments. His heart then began begging him to stop, but his brain and his temper won out. He doubled his efforts, and focused harder onto the thin thread... 

Then without warning – it _snapped_.

Kylo fell screaming to his knees as he felt the echo of the broken bond ringing in his skull. 

As he laid on the ground curled up in a tight U shape, stunned into doing nothing more than groaning and writhing in agony, he felt the arrow of guilt strike him hard right in the center of his chest. Tears uncontrollably began streaming down his face as he mournfully cried to himself.

_In his anger, he had broken something that should never have been broken._

Killing the mental bond between them was truly one of the most terrible kinds of sin that could have been committed between two people, and he now knew from the intense pain throbbing through his head that neither his heart nor the Force itself approved of his act. He had destroyed something that was both good and pure in the world, something that was forged in love. And there would be no going back, no button to press to undo what he had done.

He had destroyed the most precious thing he had ever come to possess... the heart of another. And when he had done so, a piece of his own heart had died with it... but only now, several moments too late to do anything about it, did he know it to be true. 

As the silent minutes passed, he realized that he was all alone again in the Galaxy.

After breaking the Force-bond, Kylo retreated to his quarters for an entire day. He refused to speak with anyone, however by the second day, his heart secretly had begun to hope that Project IV might come to talk to him - she never did. But nor did anyone else. Noone came to check on him, nor did his com pad buzz with missions or news from General Hux or Captain Phasma.

Nobody cared where he was, or if he was even alive, just as long as he wasn’t destroying something or not needed at the moment to kill or interrogate prisoners. The realization that he was either a threat or a tool to everyone else on board this ship – save for perhaps, her - burned his tender heart down to raw cinders. 

He thought more about her, and why she never came back for him. She had told him that there was no looking back, but he had hoped those were just words spoken in anger. It looked like now that she had really meant them. Or maybe she had felt how angry he was when he severed the precious bond between them, and now she hated him for destroying it. It was also very likely that she didn’t want to see him anymore, because of some of the hateful things that he had shouted at her in the hall near the conference room. 

The memory of his own words and actions at the moment he saw her last, now revolted and nauseated him. If only he could take them back, and undo what he had done.

As he laid in their bed, smelling the precious, lingering remnants of the smell of her soft skin and luxurious hair on his sheets and pillows, he began to wish that he could send her a message. He wanted so badly to let her know that he was truly sorry for breaking their Force-bond, and for overreacting like a bratty child. The young Knight wanted to tell her that he was sorry for every mean thing that he had said to her. 

Her words replayed again and again in his heart; how that she too wished that she could take it all back, and how she would have given her first love to him instead. It was only now that he had had a chance to cool down that he realized she was telling the truth. 

Now they both had a terrible sin that they wished more than anything in the world could be undone. 

In another life, she had indeed loved another man. But to her, it was an ancient mistake that had been made decades before he was ever born. She had gone through an absolute living hell since then, and was not the same person that she was in those days, he reasoned. Even if she was the same person, she didn’t love his father, she loved _him_ … and as much as he had tried to convince himself for it not be so when he had been angry with her, he knew that he loved her just as much as she loved him.

Even without the bond in place, he knew that he would never stop loving her.

As Kylo laid on his soft bed, clad in nothing but his silken black shorts, his brain still thick with a stew of regrets and self-loathing, he twirled a tiny, blue bird-shaped pendant within his bare fingertips. It was the same one that she had thrown aside on the day that she had reclaimed the Emperor’s twin lightsabers.

What a curious little thing, he thought. It almost looked… _familiar_. He had seen only one other like it, but he couldn’t recall where he had. He had even had the First Order’s computer systems scan its art registries and search for anything like it, but even it couldn’t place the style. It appeared to be a unique creation in the Galaxy… just like her.

The tiny bird was smooth, sparkling, and faintly topaz-blue. It had been obviously hand carved from a single, much larger crystal of an unknown type… it was faintly luminescent and _almost_ resembled a… He shook his head with a weak laugh. _'No way; nobody could cut one of those things and live to tell the tale of it.' _he thought.__

It was obvious that someone had taken a lot of care when they had created the precious little object; the cuts were too incredibly precise. Only a person with a firm, delicate hand and an eye for detail could have made the glittering facets on its surface shine so perfectly and symmetrically. 

It was the only piece of her that existed before she was captured; and now, it was the only piece of her that he had left.

Another half a day rolled by as he muddled through his own thoughts and feelings before steeling himself with a newfound resolve; he was ready to talk to her. He would find her, tell her how sorry he was, how much he loved her, and tell her that he would do anything to make it up to her. He never wanted to be apart from her, ever again.

Kylo smiled to himself as he laid in bed, face up towards the ceiling. The concept had burst into his mind, almost of its own wishes, as his wandering mind had dwelled for a while on the thoughts of his grandfather and his grandmother, and how much they must have loved each other to have married in secret. Anakin Skywalker had betrayed the Jedi themselves at the height of their power in order to possess his love... Surely he had the same intense need for such attachments as his revered grandfather had.

When the last of his fears vanished, he had suddenly come to realize exactly what he wanted… and he intended to tell it to her face to face.

Kylo quickly dressed himself – purposefully omitting his helmet, as she liked - and paged the computer system to find out where she was. The emotionless computer voice stated that she was not found on board. His newfound cheer turned to panic as he popped up Hux… who told him coldly that she had left the ship nearly a day prior. 

The General had given her his personal ship, his silver Command shuttle, for her to head to the despised Imperial research planet to battle it out with Project IV for the safety of the First Order and the crew of the _Finalizer_. It had been her request to fly with no pilot, and no droid… only the onboard autopilot. She didn’t want to risk anymore lives, and she wanted to finally end the cruel, twisted monster who had tormented herself and so many others.

Kylo immediately stuffed the little blue crystal bird pendant into a deep pocket in his tunic, before racing off to his black Command Shuttle. He smirked; he knew right where she was heading. He figured that he would outfly her clumsy, computer controlled autopilot and land just before she did, and position himself right in her pathway to beg for her forgiveness. 

And even if she said no to the question he had for her, it was better than his current fate. At least this way he had a chance to reach her once more, before he lost her forever.

But, as he neared the hangar where his ship was stored, he heard a familiar voice call to him from behind…

And he turned backward on his heel to see Project IV, standing there… completely, buck-ass naked.

His face screwed up into confusion as he ran back to her. He went to open his mouth to ask why she was there, and about her currently nude appearance, but a blow struck him across the face before the words could form. Her hand had shot up with an open palm, and grasped his head in its impossibly strong hold. Her fingernails grew downwards, the nails growing thin, long and hooked, like a raptor’s talons. The sinister claws drilled down deep into his skull, causing him to clutch helplessly at the wrenching, nauseating pain… but he found that his arms wouldn’t move. No scream came from his lungs when he went to cry out.

A hollow, familiar laugh filled his ears… ‘ _You’re mine now… traitor_.’

  


\----------------------------------------------------v^v^v^v^v^v^---------------------------------------------------------

  


Kylo’s memory flitted back to the horrifying present; hating himself for being so stupid as to leave himself vulnerable to mental infiltration by Project II, and then being so weak as to allow him to do as he wished with his body. His very body had been used as a tool to torture and abuse Project IV; she had loved him enough to refuse to fight and hurt his body… she had even came willingly along to her rape and subsequent death.

All for him. 

He did not deserve the love of another that ran so deep. No, he was a monster who others feared and who only saw as a tool to use. He broke those things in the world that were good. There was nothing, no core of good within him to warrant her sacrifices.

Tears streamed down his face and into his open mouth, as he clutched her tightly. His soft lips kissed a sweet trail of feather-light touches along her neck, and stopped by the lobe of her left ear. The skin was cold against his warm lips, as he pressed his mouth to the outer edges of the curl of her earlobes. “I guess I won’t ever get to tell you how much I’m sorry for the things I did, or the terrible things I said to you. I wanted to tell you so much, how much I didn’t want to hurt you. I understand now what you meant by wishing so much that you could take something back.” 

His deep voice buried itself deep down into her ear as he stroked her hair lovingly. “Wh… When Project II took over my mind, I was coming to find you. I… I wanted to tell you that I wanted to be with you, forever. I was going to chase your ship down, find you, and ask if you wanted to marry me…”

The stifled snort of a half-laugh broke his strained, whispered voice. “…and I honestly don’t know if you would have said yes, or no, or just laughed in my face for having the audacity to ask you at all. I guess I was a fool for even thinking of it.”

Kylo smiled as he laid his forehead against the side of her head. His left hand absently stroked her hair, as his right hand supported the back of her head and kept it upright. Tears trickled delicately from his eyes onto her face from above, running from her cheeks to her chin. “…but... I did hope that you might have actually said yes to me. Nobody else has ever understood or seen the real me so completely, like how you have... and I never wanted to be apart from that kind of love ever again.” He placed a chaste kiss against the skin of her forehead. 

Something deep within his bones pricked his heart. He knew she was gone; hell, she was cold and limp. He’d seen her unconscious before, but this was nothing like it. He’d seen death before… and it looked just like this. 

But that little twinge of something just on the back of his imagination or Force-sensitivities tickled unerringly against him, finally goading his brain into trying to heal her with the Force once more. He pressed her deep within his chest, burying her within his pale, muscular arms, and gently put his fingertips against her head. His forehead furrowed deep, as he closed his eyes and drew on every ounce of power within himself to transfer anything from him into her.

As before, deep, twilight violet energy flowed from his fingers and into her body, and exactly as before, nothing happened. But this time around, Kylo’s mind wasn’t focused on his grief, her terrible pain, or the panic of loss, he was focused on the happier thoughts that maybe, in a different universe perhaps, just _maybe_ she would have chosen to love him above all others. Maybe she would have told him that she loved him as deeply as he loved her. Perhaps even, maybe she would have indeed answered his question with a yes. 

Suddenly, the once dark energy from the fingers of his right hand ebbed and waned. The intense violet color shifted its balance across the spectrum, moving from almost black-purple to cobalt blue, then paler, until finally it flared brightly in a blinding white-blue color, just like the intense shade of the dancing binary stars above. The pale skin of Kylo’s right hand and arm glowed blinding and bright, like captured sunlight in human form.

His eyes burned through closed eyelids from the intense sunlight streaming from within his own body, and his eyes snapped open at the sight… Kylo now saw himself as a terrifying and radiant being. He was no longer a dark and bloodied monster, but a holy creature of light burning wildly with impossibly luminous energy that coursed from deep within his core. 

The young man saw then that his left hand was still pulsing with the violet energy of the Dark, but his right hand sang now with white-blue of the Light.

He understood now what he had been told all of those years back by his uncle and by the dark voices inside of his head. It was all true then what they had said, but until this exact moment, he had not believed them. 

In truth, the man named Ben Solo was one of the very rarest of souls in all of existence, a man who was equally capable of possessing both the light and the darkness in equal measure. Both sides of the dichotomous Force obeyed his command, and called constantly to him. In his service to the First Order, he had suppressed his call from the Light, and thus had denied himself access to fully half of his true capabilities and talents throughout his adult life. 

The discordant voice of the Force itself, now summoned into being by his hope and his strength, sang in glorious unison at last within his heart and mind… just as it had always intended to be. 

Kylo gently placed his pulsing, blinding right hand against her skin… 

The young woman’s head jerked back as if she had been struck by lightning. The muscles of her arms vibrated and twitched in place, the broken, injured fibers reknitting and reforming under her skin. Loud pops issued from her broken bones, as they knotted themselves back into place. 

For a few moments, Kylo could actually see the faint color of violet and white-blue ebbing through her veins, lighting up at any point where they pooled in a large collection, and then fading as it moved on throughout her body. 

Gently, he pushed even more of the power from his fingers into her stilled form; silently he found himself both asking and commanding the Force to unbreak what had been broken. The Dark and the Light obeyed the young man’s words, the two opposing forces began seeking out discord and chaos, and worked together to create harmony and balance within the body of the young woman.

At long last, and ushered in with a great fit of violent coughing from the previously inert form of Project IV, her torso rose and fell with a great intake of oxygen. Just then, the young man suddenly felt the Force-bond flare up with life and vigor once more… 

Indescribable joy etched itself into a wide smile across the young man’s face… she had returned to him from somewhere just outside of the Otherside. 

Kylo quickly relaxed his use of the Force, and shakily lowered her from his deathly strong embrace to meet her eyes. Far from the battered, deathlike expression they had held before; her deep, glittering orbs sparkled with life… and with her original color once more, like how they had been on the first day he had met her.

A tiny smile crossed her lips as she reached up and ran the fingers of her right hand down his nose and stopping on his soft, warm lips. The smile suddenly grew wider, and her cheeks bloomed with the pink of health. “I… I heard you. Everything you said and felt for me. It… kept me from going too far away, because… I wanted to keep hearing your voice.” 

Her eyes danced around his face, looking for an answer that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once. “It was your voice, alone in the darkness that found me… and called me back to you.” 

Kylo snatched her up into a massive embrace, nearly throwing her to the floor in the process. His soft mouth found hers, and he swiftly pressed into her lips with all of the fervor of a man who had just been handed the keys to all of his hopes and dreams. His tears uncontrollably started up again, as she worked her mouth against his hungry kisses and cried happy tears of her own into the warm skin of his face. 

A few moments later, the young woman broke away from Kylo’s kisses and leaned back. She placed a finger against his curious lips, and smiled mischievously. “You… are absolutely, without a doubt...” She paused momentarily for greater impact: “… _the biggest pain in the ass that I have ever known._ ”

Kylo screwed up his face in confusion and slight hurt. “ _What?_ ” His entire demeanor drooped into a sullen state. _Was he wrong about how much she loved him?_

Her eyes narrowed playfully, as she ran her hand down his angular cheekbones and jaw as she shrugged slightly. “Well, now because of you I’m going to have to figure out if I’m going to make Brendol perform the ceremony or not. I doubt he’d say no, but you know, you can never be too sure with those gingers. They are a twitchy lot.”

Kylo’s eyes lit up with glittering fire from within. _Had he heard her right_? “Did you just agree to-“

She cut him off with a poke to the tip of his nose. “You are truly an idiot if you think I was going to say no to that.” Honesty stained her face a rosy color, as she recalled her sarcastic side. “Yes, I did say yes to that. I will marry you.” Her hands snaked around his thick, muscular neck and drew him towards her. 

Kylo had the strangest expression smeared across his face; it was impossible to tell if joy, shock, or confusion was the greatest of the three emotions he was currently experiencing, which left him wordlessly stunned and slack-jawed. 

The young woman laughed at his silly appearance. “What? Did you WANT me to say no? Because if that’s what you wanted I can-“ 

He stammered as he cut her off. “N-n-n-no, I WANTED you to say yes… I just-“

“Didn’t expect me to?” The same smirk from before crossed her pale pink lips, upturning the creases in a funny way. 

The tall young man rubbed his head and blushed a deep shade of red. “I… Yeah. I didn’t.” He really hadn’t… a few moments before she was for all purposes, dead, and before that, she was…

The grin on her face blew wide as she leaned in closely to his face, pushing him backwards onto the floor and spilling his long black hair around his head like an imploding dark star. She could see clearly into his mind again, and could see all of the terrors and insecurities that he still faced due to the nightmarish events of the past few days. “You _owe_ me. I think being forced to deal with me for the rest of your life is suitable punishment.”

Kylo burst into uproarious laughter as he wrapped his arms tightly around her. He was vibrating all over from the intoxicating euphoria of the moment. She had said _yes. To him_.

Her eyes suddenly grew dark and fiery with glee as she leaned down to his broadly smiling, blushing face, their bare chests pressed together. She gently tapped a mindless little rhythm out with her fingers against his broad pectoral muscles, as her sweet grin suddenly grew malicious and sinister. 

“But first things first… I have a little bone to pick with the bastard who fucked with the wrong bitch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swore I wasn't going to leave you all hanging for long on that nasty last chapter!! Please accept this gift as an apology for the utter cruelty of Chapters 23 and 24. ::hands out fluffy candies to all::
> 
> PS: It's time for Project II to get the supreme dick-kicking that he so richly deserves. Lets get to it, shall we? ::cracks knuckles ominously:: ;)


	26. Firewall Enabled

The two lovers laid in tranquil silence for a precious short while; each of them feeling the warm bare skin of the other precious person that they thought had been lost forever. They knew that their time alone together would be short, so they made the most of it while they still could before they would bring their vengeance against Project II to glorious, bloody reality.

Kylo Ren laid naked on his back against the floor, his tall, pale, muscular body embracing the smaller one of Tessamari Wingkeale, who he still knew only as Project IV. He could feel her heart beating quick and strong within her soft, feminine bosom. 

Tessamari rested flat atop his porcelain chest and torso, her slender fingers absently tracing little connections between his moles and freckles as she stared at his handsome face from the odd angle. She could feel his heart pounding away beneath the wide muscles that stretched across his ribcage.

Kylo’s face drew up into a tender smile as he ran his hand down her round cheeks and chin. He could feel her power within, but something… had changed. “You feel… different somehow. Like your energy signature has shifted in the Force.”

The beaming young woman smiled softly. “Most of my power was derived from the Emperor’s cells within my body, but Project II has spent the last week or so filtering them out of my blood... likely for his own use. There’s still a tiny bit left inside of me, but in general my powers have been significantly reduced because of his efforts. It's kind of a mixed blessing; I’m not capable of doing the things I could even a week ago, however I am just about as close to the original person that I once was as I have been in nearly thirty years.” 

She rested her head on Kylo’s chest again and snuggled up against his smooth skin. “I now feel the Light stronger than it has been since I was captured. Apparently my original natural alignment in the Force stemmed from the Light, and not the Dark, so things feel ‘right’ to me once again.” Her fingers resumed their tracing on the young man’s warm abdomen. “And I also now can sense the Light very strongly within you… but also the Darkness… but somehow they are together and at peace as one. How is that possible?”

Kylo stroked her hair between his hand and his chest as he spoke. “I’ve always been told, by my uncle - the last Jedi, Luke Skywalker - that I was special. He said that I was a very rare type of person who possessed and commanded the Light and the Dark in equal amounts. However during my service to the First Order, I found myself desiring strength and power to perform my duties as Commander, and so I began to resist the Light in order to gain that power through fear and anger.” He laughed softly. “I had forgotten how the Light has a strength of its own as well, so all off those years that I’ve been suppressing my natural call to the Light, I've really only been limiting my own true potential.” 

His eyes locked strongly onto hers, seeing into and through her shining orbs and into her mind. “By the way, I only allowed the Light to return to me when I found myself unable to help when you were dying. It came back to me because my love for you, and now it’s made me stronger, whole, and at peace once again.”

As Kylo looked into the young woman’s still-healing mind, now free of the Emperor’s influences, he noticed that there was something else that was _different_ about it. Once, there had been so many mental holes and gaps throughout her mind that they had started to become familiar obstacles for him to navigate around, but now many of them had been filled with images, emotions, and history. He could see her ancient memories within each newly filled hole, although the images that they held within were strange and rippling. Viewing her memories was like looking at a moving picture from beneath a murky layer of oil or water on a stream. 

But one particularly interesting newly-filled, rippling chasm piqued his curiosity. 

“ _’Tessamari Wingkeale’_?” he asked, curious brown and gold-flecked eyes locked onto hers and burning inquisitively. “Is that your real name? How did you find that out?”

Kylo stared up and into her, trying to read more from her mind of the story on how she reclaimed her true name, when she suddenly placed a single finger against his lips and placed a mental block in between him and what he was about to view. The young woman skooched up the tall man’s alabaster body, until their eyes were even with each other.

Her glittering eyes looked at him with a serious, yet sincere expression within them. “What lies in there is a story that I will tell you _only_ if you ask, but I will otherwise actively prevent you from seeing it unless you ask me first. The reason that I will do so is that it has an extremely high likelihood of upsetting you again, and I want to let it be your conscious decision to proceed or not.” 

Kylo blinked in confusion, he hadn’t expected such an answer. “Upset me agai-?...” A flash of imagery flickered through his mind, pushed from her to him. _His father_. “… _Oh_ … OH.” His smile faded into a mildly hurt expression. “…You somehow talked to him after I broke the Force-bond, didn’t you.”

She nodded an affirmative. “Before I answer, I want to promise you that I will only ever tell you the truth if you ask me anything about this topic.” She looked him dead in the eye. “Yes, I did. I contacted him by reaching out to his signature in the Force, once I realized that I had a connection with him from before. However, he was asleep when I contacted him. So not wanting to disturb him too greatly, I asked him in his dreams if he remembered me… and he did. He told me my name, a little more about my history, and generally seemed quite happy and surprised that I was still alive.” 

Kylo sat up, rolling her down off of his chest and onto his lap in order to take the conversation a little more seriously now that it involved _him_. His deep brown eyes fixed on hers, no longer attempting to probe her mind to see her memories, but instead asking her a series of firm and direct questions. “What else did he remember about you?” 

The suddenly tense young man abruptly hit the brakes on that line of thought before she could answer. His big hands waved back and forth in a universal expression of ‘no’. “I don’t want to hear any relationship details between you two. Just…the _facts_ , please.” His distaste for her previous relationship was plainly obvious, and completely understandable.

“Fair enough.” Tessamari placed her hand on Kylo’s forehead, and pushed a few memories inside, her brain carefully snipping out any imagery of Han, or her relationship with him as she allowed his son to see what she had seen. 

Images flooded his mind of her now-dead home planet, her happy time as a young, Force-sensitive drink server at a little backwater cantina on the once-tropical world, the smiling faces of her friends, her various favorite customers, and her family, who were all long dead and gone… She then told him that she was the lone survivor of the Great Massacre of _Antarius III_. 

Kylo gasped – he _had_ actually heard of her homeworld. 

The Empire had never before wiped out an entire planet’s surface like that, before the Massacre of _Antarius III_. Word got around about the horrors that happened there, even in the years following the fall of the Imperials. People across the Galaxy spoke of terrible places that you simply couldn’t go to anymore, because of things that had happened during the war. 

The name of the dead world _Antarius III_ was one of those places that was known to every starpilot worth his or her salt to avoid at all costs. It was contaminated with deadly radiation, had all of its valuable minerals melted or vaporized into unusable slag, and all of its life forms and habitable zones destroyed in nuclear fire. 

In fact, his father had been the one to first tell him tales of the lost, mysterious, tropical planet. 

Han had told young Ben that the massacre that had happened there was one of the reasons that he so hated the Empire. It had been a glorious world, full of jungles, flowing blue rivers, rich flowery trees, and home to the sweetest, most trusting people that had ever been born. He spoke only of fond memories of that world before it was cruelly razed to the ground. 

But one specific tale that his father had told stuck out in his mind. 

One sultry, sticky-hot and humid night, Han was exceptionally drunk and extremely tired after a long day of moving furniture by hand after they had moved to _Hosnian Prime_. He normally hated and complained nonstop about weather that was that so infernally warm and oppressively damp, but that night he was just exhausted and lubricated enough to open up about his reasoning behind the hate - hot, humid weather simply reminded him too much of the dead world. 

Ben had listened intensely to this story, mostly due to his father’s uncharacteristic outpouring of emotions, which had fascinated him as a small child due to its extreme rarity. Han droned on for a short while about the hated Imperials and their weapons of mass destruction, before finally mentioning in his drunken stupor to the small boy that he had a secret, one which could never be told to his mother. 

Han then confided - mostly to the drink that wobbled around loosely in his hand - that there had been a very beautiful woman who had once lived on _Antarius III_. He had known her many years before he met his wife and Ben’s mother, Leia Organa, her brother, Luke Skywalker, or even Chewbacca, the Wookiee. He said that the woman had been his best friend in all the Galaxy when he had been a young man, that they had many adventures together exploring that bright and beautiful world, and that he still loved and missed her every day... especially when the weather reminded him of the tropical planet that she came from.

Han suddenly began to cry into his cold drink on that hot summer night, as he revealed that he still blamed himself for her death at the hands of the Imperials… for they had tracked his ship to the planet after he dropped a load of stolen goods at one of their checkpoints. 

That night stuck out in his mind, because it was the only time Ben had ever seen his father cry.

Kylo allowed his memories of this time from his childhood to leak into her mind, and watched as her face told him all that he needed to know. He swallowed coarsely. “You knew my father a lot longer than for that one night, didn’t you.” 

She nodded, her eyes having trouble keeping locked with those of the man before her. “Yes… I did.” 

The young man’s dark eyes looked down at her chin, finally breaking their intense, penetrating hold on hers to look downward. “He loved you... really _loved_ you.” It hurt him deeply to say that, but he knew now that it had been true.

“And I loved him... but…” Tessamari lifted Kylo’s head back up by pressing upwards on his jawline, to relock her eyes with his. “I ran from him. I thought he had broken up with me, or that he didn’t have the guts to take a chance on something so drastically different from what he was used to doing, so I left and never came back. My memories about what happened between us were all mixed up and wrong… because I was the one who broke his heart, not the other way around.”

Tessamari stroked Kylo’s warm skin with her fingertips. “Time rolled onwards however, and we have both long since moved on from what we once had. He is a very old man now, with a full lifetime of other loves, regrets, family, and memories that he’s made since then. I had the life that I was intended to live in my own time stolen from me, so I have to build up a new life of my own in your time… And I choose to live that life, with you.” 

Her lips drew into a soft, pink smile as her fingers stopped on his smooth lower lip. “Oh, and if you are wondering, yes, I do consider him a friend still, and I do love him as the father of the man that I love, but nothing more. You don’t have to worry about where my loyalties lie, because they stand only with you.” She trailed her silken fingers down the side of his face, stopping at his jawline. “I love _you_ , Kylo.”

Kylo nodded as a slight grin shadowed his lips at her reassurances that she only loved him. The stories of her past was not an easy pill to swallow, but it needed to be brought into the open for him to accept and understand. 

Tessamari leaned in, her pressing her forehead up against his long, angular cheeks, feeling the structure of the bones within with her fingertips. “I do want you to know one additional thing… _he_ was the one who told me to come back after you.”

The young man stammered in shock as he reeled back; his dark velvet eyes thrown wide with flabbergasted horror. “Wha-what? He knows about… _us_?!” 

She laughed softly. “Yes, I was the one who told him, and he was fine with it. I showed him the basic details of our relationship – not _THOSE_ details, mind you - and what had happened to drive us apart. He told me that you were just like him when he was your age, not knowing what you wanted in life until it was too late, and that you secretly wanted me to come back to you instead of running away, just like how I was doing at the time. He told me to go back to you and made me promise to ‘treat you right’.”

An odd feeling suddenly pierced Kylo’s heart… His father – his lying, worthless, disappointment of a father – _had been absolutely correct_. He had desperately wanted her to come back after he broke the Force-bond with her. 

A crooked smirk crossed the handsome young man’s face, and he unintentionally resembled his father a bit more than normal when he spoke. “My father was correct, for the first time in many, many years, when he told you that. I _did_ want you to come back to me… and somehow, you did.” 

His smooth, pale forehead drew downwards into a wrinkle as a flicker of evil crossed his dark, glittering eyes. “He is still a terrible man and a worthless father, who abandoned me and my mother to chase his stupid dreams of glory with other people, and when he should have been with his family.”

Tessamari nodded, her hair bouncing slightly as she did. “I wasn’t there of course, so I’m not going to pass judgment on the man for events that I wasn’t privy to, but just believe me when I say that he does really, truly love you… or at least now he does.”

Kylo snorted and blew a tuft of annoying black hair from his face. “I don’t care if he does. I still haven’t forgiven him, and I’m no more likely to now than I was a few minutes ago.” His countenance still looked like a dark-haired, pouting version of his father as he sulked. “I hope he gets sucked out of an airlock in deep space.”

The young woman laughed and clutched at her sides in pain. “You are terrible! Your poor old father…”

The silly young man poked her in the chest with a single, large finger. “Ok, fine. No airlocks. How’s about a one-way visit to a Sarlacc pit?”

Tessamari stammered over her words with laughter as she playfully swatted away the offending digit. “Kylo! No!”

He picked up his inactive lightsaber hilt from the floor beside him, raised and lowered his dark eyebrows in a deliberately funny way as he imitated a forward stabbing motion. “Eh??” he asked, with eagerly questioning eyes.

“Oh stop it. You’re terrible.” she snorted, as she waved her hand as if to shoo Kylo’s words away like an annoying insect. 

A dark shadow crossed Tessamari’s face, as she decided to get him back good for picking on his sweet-hearted elderly father one too many times. The fiery young woman locked eyes with Kylo, like a deadly sniper that was viewing its next mark, as she squeezed the trigger and fired her killing shot directly into his skull. “You are most _definitely_ your father’s son.”

Kylo’s mouth dropped open in horror, stunned into total speechlessness. 

_Mission successful, return to base, soldier_. Tessamari stood up, dusted her still naked legs off, and swished away victoriously across the room to begin examining the locks on the primary entrance door to the room. 

“Wh-what?” The offended young man leapt to his feet as he trailed after her. She ignored him. “What did you mean by that?” He stopped following her and shouted, louder and more insistent than before. “Hey!! _What did you mean by that_?”

She eyed him playfully as she tested the door with her hands. It refused to budge. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” She ran her hands across the smooth metal door; she could feel electricity coursing within the void between the two durasteel panels. The door locks themselves were sealed and protected by an unusual type of electromagnetic current; a charge ran through them that would repel even an attack by a lightsaber. _But maybe if she disconnected or rerouted the power_ …

His plush pink lips bore the brunt of his annoyance as he chewed them anxiously between his teeth. “In what way am I like him? I am _nothing_ like him!” he squawked as he threw his hands out widely in protest.

“You are acting like him right now... your father used to whine and complain just like that, whenever I was right about something that he didn’t want to hear.” she stated matter of factly, as she knelt down to reach into the door jamb to try and feel out the electrical couplings that powered the door’s defense mechanisms. _There had to be a weakness in here somewhere…_

Kylo snapped his mouth shut as he sourly scowled at the young woman while she busied herself in the door mechanisms. “You can be quite the asshole sometimes, you know.”

“Of course I am, it’s what I do best.” Tessamari laid down naked against the cold floor and slid herself up into the steel cover of the door jamb to obtain a better view of what was going in the control box. Her head and eyes were hidden under a dark gray metal panel as she continued speaking. “I think you’d miss me too much if I wasn’t an asshole.”

The raven-haired young man huffed and stomped around the room. “I think what you delight in is taking cheap shots at my expense.” 

Gold and black wiring began to emerge around the area where Tessamari’s upper half had disappeared as she dug deep into the guts of the shielding system’s control mechanisms. “I do, but that’s because you’re so easily to get riled up. Besides, I like watching you suffer; the faces you make when you get angry or hurt are actually incredibly fucking hot.” 

She slid out from under the steel panel for a moment, when she felt Kylo’s questioning eyes burning two scalding holes into her from his position across the room. Tessamari stuffed her pink lower lip under her upper teeth seductively as she met his slightly injured gaze. “Like that one, right there. I LOVE that broken look you get when you know you aren’t able to fight back. _Mmmm_.” 

She laughed as she slid herself back up under the paneling to continue working on the wiring conundrum. “Quit turning me on. Don’t make me have to stop what I’m doing, just to go over there and fuck that pretty body of yours into a moaning mess.”

Kylo’s lips screwed upwards into a devious, dimple-cheeked smile as he meandered over and picked up his lightsaber playfully. “Do you think that’s supposed to be some kind of punishment for me?” He patted the heavy steel hilt into his hand ominously.

“It will be after I break your skinny ass in half.” she growled provocatively as she uncoupled a thick knot of red and blue wire nuts with a plasticky pop. “Right now, the only thing I need to break is this damn door.” She grunted with effort, and then broke into a laugh when she realized that she had combined what was obviously two ground wires together. “Besides, if we do end up getting out of here and getting married, I will have the rest of my life to leave you tied up and howling in agony, while you scream out my name and beg for release.”

“Why don’t you start by showing me what you have in mind for my first lesson… _Master_?” A lusty, deep masculine voice suddenly appeared far closer than she had anticipated, making her jolt upwards with surprise and conk her head on the steel door panel, just as the electromagnetic defenses fell to her rewiring efforts with a dying crackle of electricity. 

Tessamari sat up, rubbing the welt on her head with an upwardly screwed mouth and one closed, painfully wincing eye. 

Kylo was crouched very close to her now, his dark eyes dilated and lusty. His emotions through the bond and the growing pink erection rising between his broad naked thighs indicated that he had found himself becoming quite aroused by her sharp words, and of her promises of a lifetime’s worth of pain and pleasure.

Suddenly, a loud blast knocked them out of their moment of erotic reverie. Red lights began flashing and a wailing alarm klaxon began sounding off. Both of the pair jumped up from the floor, eyes wide. Another blast shook the research prison room, sending rocks and concrete pieces tumbling from the ceiling and onto the floor with a clatter.

Kylo gathered his clothes, throwing on his underwear, pants, boots, undertunic and belt, and he handed Tessamari his overtunic, cloak, and gloves. She frowned at the objects as she put them on. She had no clothes of her own, no weapon, alarms were sounding, things were caving in and exploding around them… and the door was still locked from the outside. _Wonderful_.

Tessamari leapt up from the door began to rummage through the room for anything of value that might aid them, her quick hands and eyes searching in all of the different drawers and supply rooms, while Kylo heard her plan through the bond and ignited his sparking red saber as he quickly got to work on trying to cut through the hinges of the now deactivated doors.

Suddenly, the young woman stopped when she came across a heavy locked durasteel box that was built into the back wall of the room. She could sense that there was something within that was calling her to her with incredible strength and volume. “Kylo, bring your saber over here and open this box. There’s something weird about it.” 

The tall young man cleared the room in a couple of long strides, lowered his weapon and drove the crackling plasma beam into the melting, dribbling ball of metal that was once a lock. A loud pop of temperature and pressure difference blew the lid up and off the box – within the dark sarcophagus of the box lay the silent handles of perhaps twenty or thirty different looking lightsabers. 

Tessamari knelt and ran her hands over the precious cache. It would appear that each one of the handcrafted, elegant weapons had been taken from their owners, most of whom she knew had died in this very room because she could feel their presence suddenly surrounding and penetrating her body. Each ghost or spirit was examining her in turn, as her fingers ran across the weapons that were so linked to their owners that even in their death they resonated together as one.

Kylo choked back a lump in his throat. “How… how many do you think that there are?” 

Tessamari shivered slightly, feeling the presence of kind, lonely Light Jedi and the vengeful fury of Dark Jedi passing in and through her, evaluating and judging her essence as they went. “ _Too many…_ “ she whispered reverently. “This is a cache of many years’ worth of Force-sensitive lab subjects’ confiscated weapons.”

She selected a large silver and black hilt, who belonged to one of the stronger Jedi ghosts who had randomly seemed very approving of her energy. The fiery young woman aimed the weapon away from her, ignited it… Nothing happened. She grabbed up another hilt, tried to ignite it as well – nothing. 

Kylo picked up a random hilt and slid it open… “Tessamari, there’s no Kyber Crystals in any of these. A lightsaber is powered by its Crystal, so these are all empty and useless to us without one.”

In frustration she kicked the box, rattling several metal hilts together in a strange, hollow sound. “ _FUCK_!”

The ghosts increased their intensity around her; they were still trying to tell her something. Tessamari looked around, reaching out and sensing them… _Kylo_. They were indicating something around Kylo’s mid section.

Tessamari stood up, turned to Kylo, who had a curious expression wiped across his face – _‘could he not sense them?_ ’ she thought - reached forward to where the ghosts were nearly illuminating his left undertunic pocket in her sensitive vision. She slipped her hand in, causing Kylo to look down… and produced the small blue crystal firebird pendant that Han had made her. 

Kylo cocked his head curiously up at her. “Your blue bird pendant? Why?”

The young woman ran it through her fingertips, feeling and sensing it. The tiny bird glowed sparkling and radiant in her small hand. She looked on reverently as the little pendant gently began to grow brighter and pulse blue-white with power in her hands. She closed her eyes as she allowed a flood of her energy to flow into its core, revitalizing and connecting her with its once-faded essence; without warning, the small object flared to brilliant life, blinding and fiery white-blue, yet still remained cool to the touch. It was then that she suddenly realized why the ghosts of the fallen Force-users had drawn her attention to it… 

_The pendant itself was a Kyber Crystal._

It was born from a large, natural Crystal that she had found on her now lost homeworld, was carved in love for her by another, and it resonated only in the presence of her energy.

She opened the center chamber of the first weapon that she had selected, removed the gold chain, and carefully placed the brilliantly glowing pendant within the hilt, before reclosing the silver opening. Tessamari aimed the weapon away from herself and Kylo, hit the ignition switch…

A loud crack issued forth as the weapon roared forth to life in a bit over a meter long stream of blue, sparking fire. The weapon snarled and growled ominously, similarly to Kylo’s crackling red saber. Fire the color of an autumn sky sparkled from the plasma blade and sent glittering embers dancing about in all directions.

Kylo stepped back in shock. “The Crystal cracked when you ignited the saber… That was the exact same thing that happened to mine when I made my lightsaber. I… will never forget or mistake that sound for anything else.” He watched in awe as the blue sparks danced from her blade. “A cracked Kyber Crystal is an inherently unstable thing… but it produces more raw power and energy than a steady burning saber.”

The tall Knight of Ren placed his fingertips on her forehead. He sensed something… 

…and wheeled around, just in time to ignite his weapon and deflect a barrage of red blaster fire with his snarling lightsaber, from the door that had just been blown inwards from the outside. 

Tessamari looked shocked; she hadn’t detected the attack coming until it was underway, as her blue blade quickly joined Kylo’s in sending the shots back to their owners. She watched as the tall, darkly clad young man danced with his three-pointed sword of growling, crimson fire as he deflected the plasma bursts elegantly back to their creators; Kylo was indeed faster and more in tune with the Force than she. 

Secretly… she suddenly missed the overwhelming powers that she once possessed, and that he had now fully embraced. She sighed - it was the price she would have to pay, in order to remain herself.

After a few moments, the owners of the blasters that had rained down hell upon the couple lay dead on the floor; their now deceased assailants had been a squad of ten men in white and black armor, who were armed with archaic E-11 Blasters. 

The men who had attacked them were Stormtroopers. 

_Imperial_ Stormtroopers.

…and they were fully armed with functional weapons from a bygone age.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Imperial_ fucking Stormtroopers?! TO BATTLE!!! PEWPEWPEWPEWPEW!!


	27. All Cores Activated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW... Ahem. ::cracks knuckles ominously:: Let's ride 'em, cowgirl!
> 
> PS: It's time for some fuckin' Bowie. Play it loud and proud, my raunchy brothers and sisters!
> 
>  
> 
> **_Cat People_**
> 
>  
> 
> " _See these eyes so green_  
>  _I can stare for a thousand years_  
>  _Colder than the moon_  
>  _Well it's been so long_
> 
>  
> 
> _Feel my blood enraged_  
>  _It's just the fear of losing you_  
>  _Don't you know my name_  
>  _Well, you been so long_  
>  _And I've been putting out the fire with gasoline_  
>  _See these eyes so red_  
>  _Red like jungle burning bright_  
>  _Those who feel me near_
> 
>  
> 
> _Pull the blinds and change their minds_  
>  _It's been so long_  
>  _Still this pulsing night_  
>  _plague I call a heartbeat_
> 
>  
> 
> _Just be still with me_  
>  _But it wouldn't believe what I've been thru_  
>  _You've been so long_  
>  _Well it's been so long_
> 
>  
> 
> _I've been putting out the fire with gasoline_  
>  _Putting out the fire_  
>  _With gasoline_
> 
>  
> 
> _See these tears so blue_  
>  _An ageless heart that can never mend_  
>  _Tears can never dry_  
>  _A judgment made can never bend_
> 
>  
> 
> _See these eyes so green_  
>  _I can stare for a thousand years_  
>  _Just be still with me_  
>  _You wouldn't believe what I've been thru_  
>  _Well you've been so long_
> 
>  
> 
> _It's been so long_  
>  _And I've been putting out fire with gasoline_  
>  _Putting out a fire with gasoline_
> 
>  
> 
> _Putting out fire_  
>  _We've been putting out fire_  
>  _Well it's been so long, so long, so long_  
>  _Yes it's been so long so long so long_  
>  _I've been putting out fire (it's been so long, so long, so long)_  
>  _I've been putting out fire (it's been so long, so long, so long)_  
>  _Yeah, yeah putting out fire (been so long, so long, so long)_  
>  _Been putting out fire (been so long, so long, so long)_  
>  _Yeah putting out fire (been so long, so long, so long)_  
>  _Putting out fire (been so long, so long, so long)_  
>  _It's been so long (Been so long, so long, so long)_  
>  _It's been so long (been so long, so long, so long)_  
>  _I've been putting out fire (been so long, so long, so long) "_

Hefting the heavy bulk of the dead Imperial Stormtrooper over her shoulder, Tessamari dragged the smallest of the white-armored soldiers away from the doorway. With several quick, wrenching twists and pops, she removed the man’s plate armor and threw it aside, repeating this until he was stripped to his black and shiny fabric undersuit. “How we doing, Kylo?” she shouted as she finished pulling the dead trooper’s boots off, and started working on removing the dead man's undersuit. 

Kylo Ren flitted from Stormtrooper to Stormtrooper, searching them for any undamaged passcards in order to get through a series of locked doors that he knew they'd encounter later on, all the while intermittently looking up and down the long hallway for signs of additional danger. “Nothing yet. All of these cards are all pretty banged up; I don’t think they’ll be functional. We kind of did a number on them.”

Tessamari tugged the undersuit on, before snapping the man’s white leather boots onto her feet. “That’s fine; I guess as long as we have our lightsabers we should be able to cut through most any of these doors…" She frowned in memory. "Well, we should just as long as none of the rest of them are defended internally like the one in this room was. That could take us a little bit longer if they are.” She snapped on the trooper’s white armored belt pack and clipped her long silver and black lightsaber hilt to a leather loop on one side. “I’m all good in here now. Let’s roll.” 

Another two series of explosions rocked the mountain where the hangar was, sending more debris raining down from the ceiling onto Kylo and Tessamari. The alarm klaxon was still sounding its deafening ‘BWEE-OOP!’-‘BWEE-OOP!’ warcries as flashing red emergency lights blinked ominously, their flickering, spinning effects only adding to the confusing, hellish conditions.

The agile woman darted around and past the kneeling black form of the young Commander, before issuing a sharp whistle and an upward head-tilt to catch his attention – Kylo lifted his head from one of the dead troopers and opened his left hand wide – and she tossed him his thick black cloak, overtunic, and gloves, which he all caught in his one hand. 

As the two Force-users quickly darted down the labyrinth of battleship gray durasteel and black stone walls, Kylo put on the gear that he had loaned to Tessamari to wear, before the squad of Stormtroopers had come along and so generously provided her with a wardrobe. 

Just as Kylo tugged his heavy black cloak down over his head and broad shoulders, he heard Tessamari cry out as she ignited her crackling blue saber. “RIGHT SIDE, BLIND CORNER!” 

Using her vision through the Force-bond, Kylo could see another grouping of five Stormtroopers rushing at her. He ignited his crimson lightsaber, just as she charged forward into the pack, surprising and startling all of them with her small size and aggressiveness. 

Tessamari flew at the white-armored soldiers with a howl of fury, swinging with all of the honed grace and elegance of a dancer as she skillfully twisted her fiery blue blade into the chest of one man, up and out of the helmet of another, before spinning and catching two more across the abdomen and chest… all in a single, uninterrupted move. The collection of Stormtroopers stood for a brief, wobbly moment before collapsing to the ground in a single heap of tangled, white armored bodies. 

The final Stormtrooper, who had hung the farthest back from the group of five, fired off a few stray red blasts at her which she ducked and dodged with ease.

Kylo lifted his left hand wide; using the invisible powers of the Force, he caught all three bolts of blaster fire and held them in the air as he jabbed his growling saber forward, and directly into the center of the trooper’s mass. The Stormtrooper fell with a heavy thud as he crashed down to the ground; he was already stone dead by the time the concrete floor hit his gleaming ivory helmet. 

Kylo turned back to Tessamari, who was already moving forward down the hall again. A grin sprung up on his plush pink lips. The Master of the Knights of Ren... was _impressed_.

He trotted along, quickly catching up with her due to his much longer legs and massively long strides. “Tessamari, I had no idea you were that good with a two-handed lightsaber.” The handsome young man smirked playfully as he ran beside her. “Well, I mean you were pretty good when you fought me down on the research planet, and you seemed to be at least decently accurate with them that one time when you cut all of my clothes off with them in bed, but that was with two one-handed weapons. Two-handed sabers are completely different in practice…” 

A wicked, confident grin broke widely across her youthful face. “I used to dance a lot back in the day… so between those old muscle-memory skills and the lingering knowledge that I've gained from having the Emperor influencing my brain over the past thirty years, I’ve picked up a thing or two about how one of these crazy things work.”

Kylo laughed as he charged ahead of her. “You definitely know how to use one, but you seem to not know anything about how they function internally or anything of their construction methods.” His fluttery black cloak made him look like a gigantic black bird trapped indoors, sailing down the long metal hallways. He turned his pale, angular face back to her as he continued after rounding a corner to head up a short flight of stairs. “I can teach you about the three main types of ignition systems, making your own hilt, and other esoteric aspects of the lightsaber arts...” 

His glittering brown eyes latched onto hers for a brief moment; this subject was clearly something that he had a lot of very deep and detailed interest in, and he was extremely eager to share his knowledge with someone else. “If… if you want me to, that is…” his deep, resonant voice had been toned down to be as soft and inviting as possible... he really wanted to show her how much of an expert he considered himself to be on the ancient weapons.

Tessamari leapt up over the final group of five stairs and into the elevator bay with a soft grunt. She flipped her long hair out of her face and connected her shining eyes firmly with his. “I would love for you to show me all you know about lightsabers… but first-” 

The elevator doors opened with an overly cheerful _ding!_ to reveal yet another group of five Stormtroopers. At the unexpected sight of the two Force-users, the nervous Imperial troopers all simultaneously raised their blasters defensively and shouted commands for them to halt.

Her eyes suddenly grew malicious and dark. “- _I’m going to show these assholes all I know about how to use them_.” 

The fiery young woman raced into the pack of Stormtroopers and spun around, so that she entered the elevator she did so with her back pressed up towards the chest of the closest man. Blasters began firing bolts of red in the ensuing confusion, as her entrance quickly turned what was originally a simple shooting gallery arrangement into the utter chaos of a close-quarters melee.

Tessamari swung the snapping, growling blue lightsaber that was held in her right hand downwards, and then up and around in a wide sickle shape just above her head as she spun on her nimble heels. As she finished her single wide spin, she ended her move with her back facing outwards towards Kylo, her white-blue saber still snarling and crackling ominously at her side as the troopers wordlessly slumped and slid downwards in a wet heap of dead flesh and bone-colored armor. All but one - the unfortunate man who had been closest to her back when she had entered – was now headless from the neck up.

A long, melted incision had been carved along the inside of the metal elevator at just about head height; the silvery-gray durasteel still glowed a scorched, fiery orange from where the tip of her saber of blue fire had kissed it, as she spun round.

Kylo’s fascinated brown eyes went wide and dark with an unexpected pleasure. “That… was a magnificent example of effective close-quarters lightsabery. _Very_ well done.” 

A stifled laugh emerged upon Tessamari's face, as she pretended she was tipping a hat that she wasn’t wearing towards the tall, dark-haired Knight as he entered the elevator with her. “’Twas my pleasure to give them all a good education from the neck up, sir.” She winked at the end, before the laugh broke free rather loudly at her own silliness.

The young Commander grinned as he picked through the keycards of the fallen soldiers. Selecting a mostly undamaged one, he swiped it on the elevator’s sensor pad; the selection buttons lit up yellow... _The card still worked_. Kylo quickly selected the top floor, and with a heavy rumble the steel doors closed and the elevator began to rise upwards, towards the great Imperial hangar full of ships and starfighters.

However about a half a minute into the rise upwards, another deafening blast struck the hangar, rattling the massive structure’s foundations and cutting out power to the elevator car. The emergency lights flickered red and white, and then turned off entirely, leaving the two confused Force-users standing in the dark, as their ride came to a screeching, metallic halt. 

Tessamari swore in the oppressive darkness, before letting out an exasperated sigh. “Only the fucking Imperials would be so arrogant as to not design a backup power source to their elevator relays.”

Simultaneously, a red and a blue tongue of snarling flame roared to life in the black metal box, as the pair ignited their lightsabers for illumination purposes. 

Kylo ran his hand along the door until his fingers found the groove separating the left from the right door, and he jammed his saber between them, twisting and melting the durasteel. Once he had made a small opening, he proceeded to carve out a massive oval of melted steel around the split in the two doors, and then kicked it out with a loud bang when he was done. The two severed pieces of the elevator doors fell for a long time in silence, before hitting the very, VERY distant floor at the bottom. 

The tall young man stuck his head out into the darkness and aimed his saber outwards like a torch. “Well, that’s one hell of a first step.” Kylo climbed out of the elevator car, and up on top of it with a few well placed grabs, before reaching back down with one hand towards Tessamari. “Take my hand, I have an idea.”

She laughed as she latched onto his large, warm gloved hand. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Kylo politely ignored her comment and hoisted her up on top of the elevator cab with one long, muscular arm. He then drew her up close to his chest, and folded his left arm tightly around her smaller body. “Hold on really hard, and keep your lightsaber ignited and held upwards, so I can see what’s ahead of me, OK?” 

She nodded uncomfortably as she ignited her lightsaber, sending blue firelight bouncing around the small, rectangular elevator shaft. “OK, I'm _definitely_ really getting worried about this plan of yours…” 

The flickering crimson blade deactivated as Kylo clipped it to his wide belt. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you. When I say to, cut the cables with your lightsaber below the point where I’m holding onto it... OK?”

She gulped as she randomly swung the blue blade down, severing the thick braid of steel cables in one slice and releasing the dead elevator car to free-fall down to the bottom of the shaft. 

The knot of cable in Kylo’s right hand jerked him upwards at an absolutely breakneck speed, as he screamed and tried his best to hold onto her and the straining, whipping wire inside of his white-knuckled fist. “I WASN’T REAAAADDYYYYY YETTTTTT!!” he bellowed into the faintly blue tinged darkness.

"GODDAMMIITTTT, YOUUUU SAID OKKKK!!" Tessamari shrieked back in anger.

As they sailed upwards, a vertical rectangle of light from what was undoubtedly a doorway, illuminated the very top of the shaft… Moments later, a few dark silhouetted figures poked their heads in and peered down at the two people sailing ever faster upwards towards them, their path illuminated by the blue lightsaber's spark trail. Suddenly, the shadowy heads all reemerged in a hail of red blaster fire that rained down on them from above. 

“Fucking bastards!” Tessamari cursed as she deflected blaster fire with her fiery sky-blue saber in one hand, as she held onto Kylo’s broad, muscular torso with the other. She aimed her snarling saber up at an odd angle, purposefully ricocheting a stray shot right back into the face of a Stormtrooper, who fell forward with an amusingly high-pitched scream into the shaft. His tumbling, white-armored body missed them by a fractional amount of space as they rocketed upwards and past him.

“Hold on tight, this won’t be pretty with all of them in the way!!…” Kylo shouted into her ear as they rapidly neared the top of the shaft.

The tall, dark warrior timed his leap perfectly, for just as the cable whipped up and around the large pulley at the top of the elevator shaft, Kylo released his iron-grip on the steel but he had gained enough upward momentum to swing himself and Tessamari into the pile of Stormtroopers, knocking two of them down into the shaft, and one trooper unconscious underneath Kylo’s large feet as he hit the floor.

As soon as she touched solid ground, Tessamari leapt forward and out of Kylo's grasp, to swiftly end the last conscious man’s life by jabbing her crackling blue lightsaber into the trooper’s sternum and up and out through the center of his white helmet. As the now Y-shaped man’s body slumped to the ground, it turned slightly at the knees as it fell, before tumbling down into the elevator shaft to join his fellow compatriots at the bottom, with a distant, thick-sounding thud.

Kylo grinned widely as adrenaline coursed through his thick veins. “I think I could watch you do that all day long and never get bored.” He tipped his head forward, indicating the way he wanted to go. “Come on, let’s keep going before more of them show up.”

But nearly as soon as the words left his mouth, a large doorway on the other end of the hallway opened and another group of five Imperial Stormtroopers burst in, shouting commands at each other and firing their blasters.

With a long, luxurious groan of annoyance, Kylo rolled his eyes. “Do you want me to get these?”

Tessamari snapped her crackling saber to life as she charged past the tall, black-haired young man. “I’ve got this... I'm really enjoying getting a chance to totally let loose on these dumb bastards!” she shouted… and then she skidded to a halt just as another gigantic explosion blew the entire right side of the hallway inward, killing all five of the troopers a few meters away. When the dust cleared, the young woman squinted and peered out and into the place where the wall once stood…

A vast chamber opened out before her, with at least fifty Stormtroopers inside in varying states of recovering from the explosion - which judging from the trail of destruction that cut straight up and through the ceiling - had clearly come down from high above.

Suddenly, another group of five troopers entered the hallway in front of her and began pushing the fallen stones out of the way, as they fired their blasters at the most obvious target before them - Kylo.

In response to being shot at, the dark Knight ignited his red saber, and leapt over the rockslide with a snarl as he deflected blaster shots with the Force itself into the settling dust. Through the chaos of tumbling stones, blaster fire, dust, and flashing alarms, he could just barely see another small group of Stormtroopers filing in behind the group closest to him… _this open doorway was definitely beginning to become a problem_.

Tessamari yelled over the deafening cacophony towards the black-clad Knight. “Kylo! Handle those assholes and then melt that damn door shut with your saber! I’ll handle the troopers on my side, but we’ve gotta stop even more of them from getting in here or we'll eventually get overwhelmed!” 

Kylo was already impaling a white-armored trooper, and buried halfway up to the hilt of his blood-red lightsaber into the abdomen of another one, when he replied with a snarled shout. "ON IT!!”

The room that opened before Tessamari was round and reinforced on all sides with heavy durasteel support columns; she could see though that the only way into the room aside from the blast hole into the hallway was buried under about five tons of rock and broken, twisted metal. 

The large group of Stormtroopers that slowly were rising to their feet and recovering were all trapped in there… _with her_. 

She smiled maliciously as she leapt into the room, her sky-blue saber crackling and hissing ominously as the room erupted into a hail red of blaster fire that was aimed right at her head…

With a loud grunt, Kylo shoulder slammed two troopers back down onto the other side of the doorway, before yanking the heavy steel door shut as hard as he could. The Stormtroopers trapped on the opposite side kept trying to turn the handle in his strong hands, and viciously kicked and pounded at the door trying to get it to open.

Kylo wrestled his crimson lightsaber into position while he held the door shut, and then plunged the beautiful, fiery red blade into the door hinges. The snarling plasma blade melted the hinges together, freezing them forever into one continuous slab of metal. He could still hear the shouting, kicking fury of the trapped men on the other side of the door, desperate to get it to open once more… but his efforts had paid off. 

The door had essentially been melted into a solid wall of steel now; there was no way they were getting through now.

With a huffed breath of great satisfaction, he turned back to see how Tessamari was faring with her half of the current objective… and stared in wordless horror as he saw just how _many_ Stormtroopers she was fighting at once, and… that she was _winning_.

The bodies of at least fifteen of the white-armored men already lay in various states of bloody dismemberment; severed heads, arms, legs, abdominal cavities lay torn open and exposed for all to see their eviscerated insides that had been turned into their outsides. The stench of burned flesh and iron-rich blood tinged the air with the hateful sharp odor of a slaughterhouse.

A small, feminine form in the center of the fray stood still but just for the very briefest of moments, before leaping up at the closest Stormtrooper. She expertly hooked him around the neck with the inside of her right knee and drug him to the ground in a chokehold, but not before using her newfound height to swing her roaring lightsaber wide to catch three men simultaneously in an arcing, roaring crescent of pale blue light. Her vicious swing severed all of their heads in one movement; the decapitated heads that were still stuck within their helmets struck the hard ground with an almost comical sound. Their freshly severed arteries blew out a wide splattering of blood, which sprayed the small woman in a misty coating of dark red. 

As the trooper that she had locked her knee around fell from being thrown off balance, Tessamari planted her left foot hard onto his right shoulder, and front flipped off of his back to land on the floor directly in front of another trooper, who fell apart into two separate pieces as her crackling lightsaber came down along with her.

Kylo shouted to get her attention - she acknowledged him with one blazing eye and an outstretched left hand – and he threw her his cross-shaped lightsaber hilt, which immediately sprung to life in her slender hand with three columns of roaring crimson flames.

Armed now with two of the snarling plasma blades, Tessamari drooped her arms low for an ominously beautiful moment as red blaster fire rained like falling stars around her, before she leapt into the fray like the heavenly, feminine avatar of Death itself. 

Red and blue embers sprayed through the air almost festively, as the two lightsabers sang their merciless song of blood and battle. The small, lithe form of Tessamari slipped between two shoulder-to-shoulder troopers, and she stabbed simultaneously to her front and her rear, impaling both men through their sides and up into their lungs. She retracted her arms, leapt up, and dropped down onto the head of another trooper, riding him around the shoulders for a moment before driving both snapping lightsabers into his chest simultaneously.

As he fell, she sprung up from his bloody, perforated chest and down onto the floor with catlike grace; her sabers held at the ready as she balanced daintily on the front pads of both nimble feet. Three Stormtroopers rushed at her crouched position on the floor, before she flipped onto her back to perform a lightning-fast handspring off of her closed fists, which put her at exactly the proper height to sever all six of their legs in another deadly arc of blue and red light. 

The wounded, dying men screamed and wailed in agony as blood spurted in wide fountains from their incised arteries, and pooled nearly violet-purple on the floor. The woman however, was not rattled even in the slightest. Kylo could sense her almost eerie calm and serenity in spite of the gory, bloodsoaked scene; it was almost as if she had been tailor-made to see the front lines of war and to fight in terrible bloody battles just like this one.

However, Kylo had a completely different emotion pumping through his mind as he watched her warrior spirit flying free through the twin blades of fire and ice... This new feeling engulfed him, like fuel to an unquenchable fire. The sights, the sounds, and even the charred-iron smells of the bloody battle, with the graceful woman dancing about in the middle of its deadly storm... _turned him on like never before_.

He hungrily pawed at the rock-hard, aching bulge in the front of his pants, as he watched the delicate form of the young woman slicing, stabbing, and weaving her way through the impossible throng of trained soldiers. To her singing blades of light, the battalion of men seemed as if they weren’t even a serious threat to her terrible vengeance.

A flash of red light; a white-armored man fell in two. The guttural scream of blue fire; a column of light burst up from a shining helmet, having been shoved up there from the chin upwards and into the brain of its now deceased owner. 

Sweat beaded and dropped down into the lusty young man’s raven-colored eyelashes, as he struggled to remain standing upright. The muscles of his muscular arms and broad thighs twitched involuntarily, while his pale, shaking hands groped blindly at the thick folds of black fabric over his crotch. He gently rubbed the painful shaft of flesh between his legs, both enjoying the feeling of satisfying an undeniable need, and stoking the fires that lit him ablaze from the inside out... 

One by one, the men twisted and fell, most screaming out as they perished by the twin sabers. When finally the last trooper joined the heap of stilled flesh, white armor, and blood, Tessamari stood alone. Her radiant skin was now coated in a fine mist of sticky red gore, and her hair was matted to her face. She pushed a clump of befouled tresses from her eyes and turned to face the caved in hallway, looking for the owner of the pair of dark eyes that she could feel burning into her back… 

…When suddenly she was struck by a massive black object, who drug her roughly around the shoulders from the center of the round room and back into the dusty, rock-filled hallway.

With an incredibly forceful impact that knocked most of the air out of her lungs, Tessamari found herself being smashed face first into a durasteel wall by her unseen assailant. A heavy, warm body ground and thrust itself up against her over and over again; a prominent round-ended spike of flesh jabbed up into her right at the base of her fully clothed asscheeks repeatedly. Animalistic grunts accompanied the rude, violating movements and the warm pressure of being crushed flat into the cold steel wall. As she checked over the mental bond, she confirmed with a sigh that her merciless, hyper-aggressive assailant was in fact.... none other than _Kylo_.

Curiously, she turned her head over her right shoulder to meet his snarling, bared teeth and spittle-flecked, reddish lips as he thrust and humped her into the wall savagely again. “What… is _-oof!-_ the meaning of all of this?” she asked, with amusement burning in the corners of her upturning mouth. 

In response, he ground his erection up through their clothing, pressing as far up into her and as absolutely as hard as he could several times. before speaking in hushed, ragged, and breathy tones. “You… fucking… _uuuurrggghhh_.” He punctuated the last nonsensical sound with another heavy, luxuriously long thrust and grind of her backside against the rock hard length between his legs. “ _I want to fuck you… right here… I don’t care who sees or knows… I have to have you now._ ” 

His large right hand slipped down between the cold steel wall, and the front of her one piece outfit. His prying fingers pressed themselves tightly between the warm folds of her crotch, which lay just a few millimeters under the dead Stormtrooper’s undersuit. Slowly, gently, he ground the tips of his fingers into her sensitive skin with a slightly massaging movement, as he thrust up against her and moaned helplessly. 

She could feel his warm, heavy body quivering all over with fiery intensity; each one of her quick breaths allowed him an opportunity to press her even harder into the wall, as he continuously tried to impale her with his fully clothed manhood. His desperation was evident; the Force-bond was full of primal, half-formed words, all of them begging her to allow him to push himself deep inside her.

A smile broke her pink lips. “You think that you _-augh!-_ deserve to get to take me right here, in the middle of a fight, simply because _-urrrggh-_ you got a hard-on by watching me work?” She then teased him by reaching down between her legs and giving the hard tip of his length a playful squeeze. In response, the young man arched his back languidly and mewled out a soft, almost pleading note beneath his rough breathing.

A moment later, Kylo found his aggressive streak again when her fingers suddenly withdrew from the blisteringly tight skin of his cock, that was still tucked deep beneath his clothing. His deep, dulcet voice was seductively dark and velvety smooth as he spoke. “Yes… _I do_." He ran his hot, knobbly tongue up her neck and jaw, licking the drying blood off as he went. “ _I want… to fuck you. Now. **Right now**_.”

With absolutely no warning whatsoever, Tessamari immediately flipped herself out of his grasp and behind his back. She twisted his right arm tightly up behind him to the top of his wide leather belt, before grabbing his left wrist and pinning it to his right wrist. Now rendered defenseless, she slammed the tall young man up against the wall, as he yelped a loud, pained grunt. 

Kylo’s dark eyes flew open with terror. “Wha…what are you doing?!” he screamed in shock.

Silently, she kicked his big feet widely apart, before stepping forward with her left foot and into the gap that was formed by his distantly spread legs. She then lifted her right leg high, draping her curvy thigh over his right hip, and drawing him up into a tightly locked grip with her knee joint. 

Kylo panicked as he heard the sound of wire cabling being torn from a destroyed wall panel right beside her, and then again as he felt the burn of something thin and plasticky being drawn around his wrists, binding them together. Any number of possible horrors crept into his mind, as he felt her slender left hand snake up slowly and reach upwards to touch the base of his skull. He then felt her fingers curl up into a thick tangle of his raven-black hair… A moment before she abruptly jerked his head so far backwards that he was forced to stare up at the ceiling. He cried out in pain and fear.

His terror was short-lived however, when he felt her free right hand slip over his right hip, and down between his legs to squeeze his manhood tightly. He groaned pleasurably at the lingering pressure of her iron-strong hand, and at the warm, tingling sensations that she pressed along his sensitive length with her delicate fingers. Her fingers wrapped themselves like a basket around his wide tip, gently pressing up and down against the slick skin.

The fiery woman's warm crotch, which was still pressed hard against his firm, round ass, slowly ground itself seductively into him. The smooth feminine body carefully felt every lump and curve of the young man’s tensed muscles beneath his heavy layers of dark fabric rub against herself. 

Slowly, she pumped herself upwards a few times against his ass, grinding herself almost as if she was mounting him from the rear. Her right hand stopped her stroking movements against the front bulges of his crotch, for just long enough to free his painfully large erection from the confines of his pants, before returning to stroke him again. 

His head and scalp burned again for a brief moment, as she tugged him down by his long wavy hair to her tender lips. The your woman drug her razor sharp canine teeth along the fine skin behind his right ear, as she whispered to him in a commanding, yet silver-gilded tongue. “ _This… is **mine**_.” She punctuated the underlying meaning of her words by grinding against him once more, and milking his manhood a single, strong time.

Her voice grew black and sinister, as she lightly traced the inside of his ear with her wet tongue. "You don't get to fuck me with _my_ cock whenever you please... _But I can fuck you anytime and in any way that I want, because I am your fucking master... My pretty little boy_."

She then thrust herself hard enough against his ass to knock his head into the wall with a comical sound. "And I am going to fuck you right here, and _you_ are going to stand here like a good boy and _take it all_."

Kylo whimpered as she mercilessly fucked him through his clothes. He closed his eyes tightly shut and pressed his forehead into the cold steel wall, while she stroked his thick erection with her firm hand, and continued violently humping him from the rear.

Tessamari cackled as she released his tender hair, and placed her left hand on his hip to drive herself more firmly against his broad back and ass. “Don’t you _dare_ tower over me, you big bitch. Get your tall ass down here or I’ll fucking _make_ you.” 

She pushed down hard on the center of his back with her chest, forcing him to bend slightly forward at the waist, as she continued pumping his cock with ever quickening speed. His newly bent over posture pushed his ass even harder against her crotch, and she took advantage of that by pulling him up against her and grinding on him, even more aggressively than she had before.

Kylo’s face was bright red with inflamed passions; the sensation of her weight and warm body riding him, the feeling of someone forcing him to bend over so submissively, the tight, narrow bindings tied around his wrists, his sensitive manhood in her still-bloodied hands stroking him firmly… The fine hairs on his arms and the back of his neck all raised and stood high, as he screwed his eyes shut and focused on how good it all felt. 

The tall, handsome young man’s ragged breaths came in little tight spurts, as he moaned softly in time to each stroke that she pumped along his hot pink length and to each furious thrust that she slammed up against his tight, muscular asscheeks. 

Suddenly, he felt her left hand leave his hip and tuck itself up tight between his legs from the rear. The hard hook that was formed by her raised fingertips stroked the soft skin between his ass and his balls for the briefest of moments, pushing up and into a swollen knot of blinding pleasure that he didn't realize even existed. Suddenly, the dark-haired young man cried out in shaking, thrusting orgasm as he fucked out his spurting, messy release... _all over the woman's right hand_.

When his climax had faded enough that he was aware of what he had done, Kylo trembled as he looked down. Her beautiful fingers and palm was completely covered in the end result of his pleasures; the liquidy, slightly thick and stringy mess ran all the way down to her slender wrist. His dark, fearful eyes flicked up to hers… 

Tessamari looked curiously at the white, sticky mess that he had left all over her hand; her expression growing more blank as she examined its thick, slightly bubbled appearance at a very close range. Suddenly she turned back to Kylo, with newfound daggers gleaming in her malicious eyes. She then raised her right leg up and off of his hip, before kicking the tied-up, defenseless man off balance and onto his back on the floor. 

Kylo shook in fear for a moment. He had made a complete mess all over her, and she was oozing wordless anger through their Force-bond back to him. He tried to send an apology through to her both with his trembling eyes and through their connection, but she blocked both of his efforts.

Suddenly, she locked her eyes with him and raised her right hand to her sinister lips… and seductively licked her fingers and her smooth palm completely clean of his dull-white emissions with her dark pink tongue.

His eyes grew wide at the incredibly hot sight of her hungrily licking his seed off of her bare hand, while he laid on the floor and watched helplessly. The twin dark arches that were formed by his eyebrows bunched tightly together, as he chewed his lips in pleasure while the woman refixed her eyes on his. He could still see the faintly white wetness glistening off of her plump pink lips as she smirked cruelly.

Suddenly she took a step forward and down towards him. She pressed her left foot into his shoulder to force him down flat to the ground, and then carefully placed the same small foot up against his scalp to stand firmly on top of his black, wavy hair. With increasingly wide-eyed terror, Kylo watched as she stepped onto his broad chest with her right foot, and squatted over his neck. Her impossibly strong left hand grabbed him up by the high collar of his black outfit, tugging his hair up under her left foot and making him squeak involuntarily in pain. 

The sinister young woman then lowered herself to an almost sitting position on his upper chest as she brought his face up to meet hers… and then she softly pressed her hot lips into his. He responded by apologetically meeting her mouth, and then trying to force his tongue into hers to prove his sincerity… Suddenly, his dark brown eyes flew open wide with shock as he tasted a large amount of bitter-tasting, slightly sweetish, salty fluid that she had emptied onto his tongue from her own. 

_And he knew EXACTLY what it was that she had put into his mouth_. 

She pulled away from his lips, entirely satisfied and pleased with the horrified, soured look that had wiped itself across the young man’s face with the realization of what had just happened. 

His pleading brown eyes looked up at her with utter horror; he was too fearful to spit, and unwilling to swallow. 

Slowly and seductively, she leaned down to place her soft lips into the warm curve of his right ear. “ _When your master cums into your mouth… good boys swallow whatever their master gives them to swallow_.” She the lifted her head back, to watch him almost imperiously with arms crossed over her chest. That devilish smirk never left her pursed lips as she stared holes into the handsome young man's terrified face.

Hating himself even more so than usual, Kylo nervously, unhappily choked down the mouthful of unpleasant tasting liquid with a quick up and down bob of the knot in his prominent throat. His soft lips tilted downwards unhappily at what he had done.

Pleased with the satisfactory sight of her command having been obeyed, Tessamari sat upright on his chest and removed her left foot from his hair. She gently petted his soft cheek and jawline approvingly as she locked her glittering eyes onto his. “ _Good boy_.”

Kylo drew his face up into a sour scowl as he sat upright. “That wasn’t fair. You could have warned me before doing something like that.”

“Where’s all the fun in that?” she said as she playfully cocked her head. A moment later, she lifted herself up off of his body and stepped away. 

Kylo sat up and easily broke the wire ties binding him with a quick sideways jerk of his hands, before tucking his spent manhood away and back into his black pants. He grumbled as he wiped his lips with the back of his gloves. “That tasted awful.”

“It’s not supposed to taste good.” She laughed as she dusted herself off. “That’s why it’s such a big deal when someone swallows it.”

The young man hissed and shook his head bitterly as he was reminded of the events and the tastes of the last few moments. “Fuck that.”

Tessamari broke into hysterical laughter. “That’s what it’s actually meant for!”

Without warning, another deafening explosion rang out. The blast took out part of the support columns along the walls, causing several tons of rock and boulders to tumble into the hall behind Tessamari and Kylo towards the elevator shaft.

Both heads turned simultaneously at the massive rockslide, then back to each other just as another explosion struck; the heavy durasteel ceiling buckled, but refused to cave in. Tessamari snarled over the thunderous crash of stones, and the still continuous sounding of the Imperial alarm klaxon. “WHAT IN THE HELL KEEPS DOING THAT?!”

Kylo tipped his long, angular face upwards as confusion broke across his brows. “It… It’s the _Finalizer_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I get that we are very nearly at the end of my little - well, 80k plus words isn't _little_ by any stretch of the imagination - tale. I've spent well over a month and many countless hours manufacturing and typing up what I thought was a fun to read little sci-fi/horror/violent adventure story that was set in the Star Wars universe, with some hot porny parts thrown in for spice. 
> 
> But holy hot damn, penning the scene about snowballing a poor unsuspecting subby Kylo Ren with his own splooge has SO made all of it worthwhile. ;)


End file.
